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What are you exiting today? Running away from? Leaving? What...

Sun, 19 May 2013 11:00:06 -0400

What are you exiting today? Running away from? Leaving? What does that mean about where you’re going? Where you’re entering?

Problems with Non-locational Church

Sat, 18 May 2013 11:00:15 -0400

Everybody knows that churches are located in geographical space to at least some extent. Churches may define their geography differently, but each has “space” that is at least somewhat identifiable. When I talk about University Lutheran, the church that I serve, I can speak of its “space” in terms of:

Our footprint - This is probably the most common way to think about the local church. It is also probably the least Scriptural.

Our city - This way is still pretty common. Being in a tradition that names every third church “St. Paul’s Lutheran” or “Trinity Lutheran” keeps this going. ”St. Paul’s Tallahassee” or “Trinity Tallahassee” both work because they give a little more focus. But honestly, this is probably too broad. When St. Paul wrote to the church in Rome, he was writing to the “Church” (big C, community of believers in Christ), not to the “church” (little c, community in a given subset).

Our neighborhood - Being a campus ministry, we’re often called “University Lutheran, you know, the one by the stadium at FSU”. I would argue that this is probably the best way to think of the local church, to think of it in terms of neighborhood. Churches in other traditions show that they get this idea when they name their church after the subdivision that they’re in (i.e. Twin Pines Community Church). Like I said, I’m a Lutheran, so naming a church after a neighborhood feels a little like heresy to me…but I get what is going on here.

And yet, there is a way to speak of church that gets problematic. That way of speaking of church is the non-locational idea of church, or at least the “meta-locational’ idea of church. In other words, the idea of church that isn’t connected to place or people, but to idealized conceptions.

I run into this “non-locational” church occasionally at times like:

a.) I’m talking to someone who is trying to sell me a one-size fits all plan for church. Not always, but normally, one of the things that they try to convince me of is that my church is just like the last church that greatly benefited from their product. While my church may still benefit from the product, trying to convince me that you have a non-contextualized silver bullet is grade-A manure fresh off the farm. I will call this the “non-contextualized non-locational church”.

b.) We get to theologizing and someone starts saying “…the Church then goes and ….” Whose church? Where is this church? Did we actually find something that would unite sinful human beings? If so, praise Jesus! But it’s probably not real, and if it is, it’s probably not very new (i.e. forgiveness of sins). Let’s call this one the “compartmentalized non-locational church”.

Where do you see the “non-locational” church popping up in your experience? Love to hear your responses on disqus below or on facebook.

rattle rattle rattle psst psst pssst…memories

Fri, 17 May 2013 11:00:01 -0400

rattle rattle rattle psst psst pssst…memories

Netflix Adultery - 30sec Ad - Thou shalt not commit adultery....

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:05:01 -0400

Netflix Adultery - 30sec Ad - Thou shalt not commit adultery. In a day and age where that particular commandment is seemingly unexplainable to most of our culture, the folks over at Netflix did it, and did it with style.

The Small Catechism’s explanation of this commandment (6th if you’re a Lutheran or Catholic, 7th if you’re further down the ecumenical road after Calvinism) is “We should fear and love God so that we lead a sexually pure and decent life in what we say and do, and husband and wife love and honor each other.” Does it apply to streaming movies? Well, probably not. Does it present an excellent metaphor? You bet.

What adultery does is that it destroys the “togetherness” given by God to a married couple. Instead of doing “it” with your spouse, you’re doing it on your own. And sometimes, it is really on your own - in front of the computer screen or someplace else. Other times, however, it’s still on your own. Even if you’re with another person, what is normally the case is that you’re using the other person in order to sexually gratify yourself. To even further complexify the situation, you can even do this while you’re having sex with your spouse - if you’re not being “together” but “gettin’ yours”.

I wrote sometime back about how I catch flack occasionally because I’ve described Holy Communion as “the closest thing to sex that we get with Jesus”. Now I catch flack because you can take that in some pretty horrible ways - but most of those ways have to do with self-gratification. That’s not what Jesus meant His meal to be about. He meant it to be something that ultimately focused on togetherness, Him with His Bride the Church (yes, dummy, I said “His Bride the Church,” not “His Bride, You” pick up I Corinthians).

So don’t go adulterizing, with movies or anything else. Focus on the togetherness - at the Table and in the bedroom.

Looking forward to your comments below or on facebook.

The Pastor I Never Want To Be

Tue, 14 May 2013 11:00:17 -0400

Existential crisis is a normal place for a pastor to be most of the time. We’re often stuck in this weird place that we call “under shepherd” that seems to mess with our heads. We’re an insecure bunch, for the most part, because we know the righteousness of Christ very well, and like all sinners, we are not very good at applying His righteousness to ourselves (because it’s something that should come from outside of ourselves). And I am no different - I’m a pastor, and I have my existential crises…often.

The question that usually either triggers the crisis or the first step of the outworking of the crisis (I can rarely tell which it is) is to ask myself the question, “What kind of pastor…..?” This comes in many forms. “What kind of pastor should I be?” “What kind of pastor do I want to be?” “What kind of pastor do *they* expect me to be?” etc etc etc. These are hard questions to answer - partially because they’re not always asking the same persons for their opinions on the questions.

However, in a recent moment of thinking of these questions, I thought to my past. My past includes going to a small Lutheran college where I ostensibly was a “Pre-Seminary” student, which meant taking language courses and some philosophy. It also gained you access to the “Pre-Seminary club”. It was at “Pre-Seminary club” that I began to notice something. I began to notice that there were some people who had much different notions of what it meant to be a pastor than I did. It appeared that this group of people granted access to the “Pre-Seminary club” were like me in some ways, but in other ways, they were very different.

I don’t think that this Pre-Seminary club group was actually representative of most, nor do I entirely trust that my uncomfortable feelings were entirely righteous. What I do know, however, is that I walked away from one meeting saying to myself, “Well, if that’s what a pastor is, then I am not a pastor…”

Obviously, eventually, I got over that feeling some four years later. But as I thought through my current existential crisis, I thought to myself that it might behoove me to actually go back to that rebellious son-of-a-gun spirit and declare to myself once again, not the kind of pastor that I want to be, but rather the kind of pastor I never want to be. What follows are a few of those caricatures in no particular order:

1. The Lazy Pastor - I come from families that were predominantly small business owners and farmers. As a direct result of this, my familial culture has been colored by a manic work ethic. While this at times makes me unhealthy because I’m always searching for achievement, it also confounds me when I find pastors who can’t do simple things like return phone calls. Honestly however, I don’t think that this “pastor I never want to be” is really that common. Most of us work ourselves to the bone for some reason or another - whether it be our own insecurities or our familial cultures.

2. The “I Graduated” Pastor - Early in my pastoral career, I had a conversation with another pastor who confessed to me that he had not read a book on ministry in over 3 years. Now, I’m willing to grant that this guy being older than me and having the years of experience under his belt that he did, probably didn’t need the same kinds of learning that my wet-behind-the-ears seminary graduate did. But I found something disconcerting in the number of pastors who refused any sort of ongoing learning. It baffled me, and still does. I simply do not understand the sort of pastor who stops learning after their graduation date.

3. The Whiner - I once knew a pastor in my childhood who would often be found sipping on the stash of communion wine for the next Sunday. He had a problem and his imbibing soon led to his dimissal. However, I have seen plenty of pastors who imbibe something that is seemingly far more addictive than communion wine - they are addicted to their own whining about how difficult being a pastor is, and how “people expect me to entertain them, not to feed them,” and how all of the forces of the universe are aligned against the poor little pastor. Oh, poor little pastor, you are much more maligned than Luther was and you are certainly in a much more difficult surrounding culture than the Apostles were to bring the Word of God to bear in the lives of people around you. Shut up. As a classmate of mine in the seminary once said, “The LCMS believes that God ordains men in to pastoral ministry, so grow a pair.” (HT: Jeff Hemmer)

4. The Theorist - This is one type of “pastor that I never want to be” that I often get close to becoming. The theorist is the kind of pastor who has developed theories about theology and ministry that sound good to the pastor. They haven’t necessarily been tested, however, and because of that, are often found to be either wrong or lacking.

5. The Know-Nothing Liberal and the Know-Everything Conservative - These twins are often found fighting with one another in the womb like Jacob and Esau. The Know-Nothing Liberal is the kind of guy who has definite opinions on things that liberal folks like to have opinions on - stuff like gender equality and how we treat the environment. Unfortunately, however, rarely are they able to form a reasonable argument for why those things are important that go anywhere beyond the ridiculously underestimated statement “God is love.” He is, but what you’re meaning by that probably is about as vapid it sounds. On the other hand stands the Pharisaical (and lemme tell you, they REALLY hate it when you call them that) “Know-Everything Conservative” whose opinions have been formed and battlehardened by countless arguments on blogs, facebook pages, and any other form of media that does not require this pastor to ever leave his office where things are safe and his books are there.

6. …I’m sure there are a few more, but I should stop here. What’s your “pastor I never want to be” or “pastor I never want to have”? How does knowing what you don’t want frame who you do want to be as a member of the Body of Christ? Looking forward to hearing about it on facebook or in the Disqus comments below.

Gen X goes back to school

Mon, 13 May 2013 12:00:17 -0400

According to a recent survey, some 48% of Generation X members are enrolled in some sort of formal education (this doesn’t include company-required CEU’s). This is interesting to note because of Gen X’s educational history. Gen X’s college attendance slumped slightly in terms of 4-year institutions compared to their elder Boomer counterparts, but they had their own Gen X boom of 2-year attendance. Gen X’s community college explosion paved the way for the high rate of Millennials in college. 19.7 million Americans, many of them Millennials and Gen X’ers are currently enrolled in college classes this year - that’s about 14 million more Americans enrolled in classes than 20 years ago according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

What does this mean for our culture? for the church? Well first of all, it means that more and more people in our pews are going to have at least a bachelor’s degree. It means that the level of teaching is going to have to correspond with an increasingly educated, and therefore increasingly critically-thinking church. While it doesn’t mean that sermons necessarily have to change (those are normally pretty well researched anyway), it does mean that pastors may have to start holding more “office hours” for people to ask questions. It also might mean that churches might benefit from holding study hours and academic mentoring programs.

It also means that the church is going to have to figure out how to minister at community colleges and to those whom are taking night classes. The “traditional student” is becoming less traditional and more vocational. College appears to be trending to be not as much the traditional time period of self-and-other discovery, as a necessary ongoing vocation. If this trend and change continues, it will mean drastically different campus ministries in the future.

Think about your family and friends. How many of them are going back to school and finishing a degree or attaining a new one? How many people in your church are doing the same? What issues do you think might come of this “continuing education” boom? Use Facebook and the Disqus comments below. Looking forward to hearing from you.

The Makings of a Crisis of Sociopathy

Mon, 13 May 2013 11:00:00 -0400

Generationally speaking, a “civic” generation like the currently popular “Millennial” generation is propelled into action by a “crisis”. A crisis is generally a period of a sustained 10-year problem. Theorists have bandied about two different crises that might define the current Millennial generation: a.) the downturned economy and b.) the presence of terrorism in the United States, or c.) both.

The legacy of a civic generation is therefore held to how it responds to the crisis at hand. For example, the last civic generation, the “GI Generation” responded to the crisis of WWII. The GI response to WWII was so strong in terms of creating infrastructure that would establish it as a world superpower, that even today the United States seems to be the nation that holds the most international influence in terms of “wars and rumors of wars”, just look at the headlines concerning Syria these days.

An interesting article came out of the Huffington Post the other day comparing the Boston Marathon explosion to 9/11. Certainly, there are differences - the death toll of 3 persons vs. a death toll of almost 3,000 is certainly not the least of these. However, what the Boston Marathon bombing does do is solidifies in the mind of this younger civic generation as to how the world is broken.

To this civic generation in the United States of America, the world is broken by sin in a way that their parents would not have necessarily seen on their home turf, it is broken with alienated individuals who kill without necessary regard for a communal ideology. In other words, our world is being broken by more and more people whose killing seems to make sense to noone but themselves. The headlines of this year point to a crisis of sociopathy - a movie theater in Colorado, a school in Connecticut, a dorm in Orlando, a marathon in Boston. All of these are places where we are used to seeing community built, and all of these were targeted by those whom we rightly call “terrorists”, not because they work for some shadowy militant organization, but rather precisely because of the low incidence that they are connected in any way to normal social community. Even Al Quaeda at least seems less troubling in some ways when compared to these attacks - at least they understand themselves as a unit, and not simply homicidal rogues (although the rest of Islam would call them homicidal rogues).

Could it be that the crisis that this generational grouping of Silents, Boomers, X’ers, and Millennials is called to address is a crisis of a lack of communal identity? If so, what group better enabled to address this crisis than a religion that proclaims itself to be one Body under one Head who is Jesus Christ?

Looking forward to your thoughts and ideas on Facebook and here in the Disqus comments below.

What's your bluetooth?

Sun, 12 May 2013 11:00:22 -0400

Bluetooth technology has been steadily taking over Apple’s 30-pin hold over technology dominance. The iPod gave the market the imperative to produce “iEverythings”. From pillowcases to hotel alarm clocks, it seemed like everyone wanted to not only brand, but also design themselves to be Apple specific. However, that could only last so long.

Now the 30-pin tell-tale Apple connector is giving way to Bluetooth accessibility, something that can be native to Apple, Android, and even Windows mobile systems. The days of Apple-only connections are waning unless Apple figures out another way to do it.

This all brings up questions for your church. Your church probably had or currently has a position of dominance to some degree. It could be that everyone in your church had or has their Lutheran or Methodist or Baptist or non-denominational “30-pin” connection - but a connection that only works with the specific things that your denomination or tribe produces is a risky option.

In my denomination, our publishing house - Concordia Publishing House, started to learn this years ago. What used to be a monopoly situation for them soon was challenged by other publishers like Lifeway and Group. They found out that they had to compete in order to sell to Lutheran churches, and not simply rely on the “Lutheran 30-pin” connection.

By way of a metaphor, the “bluetooth” in terms of your church is something that equalizes the playing field, something that makes you compete instead of assuming - something that actually pushes you towards righteousness instead of laziness. For traditional-church-body campus ministries like my own, our “bluetooth” is waning denominational loyalty. It makes us better because it forces us to have discussions around what we’re actually offering instead of simply assuming that people will take whatever we have to offer.

What’s the “bluetooth” for your local church or church body? What equalizes the playing field and forces you to compete or think about how you might distinguish yourself? Leave a comment on facebook or in the Disqus comments below.

Generational Deja Vu

Sat, 11 May 2013 11:00:16 -0400

When the New York Times posts an article headlined “Corporations Find a Friend in the Supreme Court” with a subheading saying that the Supreme Court is the most pro-business bunch of justices since WW II, you begin to get a sense of “we’ve been here before.” That sense of deja vu is an important aspect of what it means to study generations. The leading generational theory out there right now postulates that there are four generational archetypes that repeat themselves over and over again. In the Supreme Court example, the G.I. generation was at approximately the same point in its life cycle when their justices began making more pro-business/pro-corporation decisions as Millennials are when they are making some of the same kinds of decisions.

Millennials are a “civic generation” archetype as their G.I. predecessors were. Gen X is a “reactive generation” archetype as “the Lost” generation of Hemingway, Fitzgerald, and others who came of age in WWI. The Baby Boom is an “idealist” generation par excellance like the Awakening Generation that whipped up religious and intellectual fervor to create the American Revolution; and the generation being born today will likely look like the over-medicated and psychologized Silent generation that solidified what it meant to be “culture” even into today with things like rock n’ roll and modern art.

The theory seems to point to similar events happening in the lives of the generational archetypes. Today’s pro-business Supreme Court may simply be responding to the same kind of economic urgency that was present and demanding a response from the Supreme Court in the 1940’s, like a massive unemployment rate for younger citizens. Baby Boomers and the founders of American politics both were responding to a religious and secular explosion within their cultural eras.

If anything, this pro-business and pro-corporation Supreme Court is probably good for the United States. Civic generations tend to be “joiners” and tend to work together better than they will ever work alone (see my earlier post on the “Microwave Generation”). A pro-group/corporation judicial branch will be necessary if this generation is going to do the “system building” work that their G.I. great great grandparents did.

What do you think? Do you see generational deja vu? Do you see it in politics? In the church? Looking forward to your responses on facebook and here in the Disqus comments below.

Growing up in the microwave

Fri, 10 May 2013 11:00:29 -0400

In 1990 when the first Millennials were approximately 8 years old, 90% of households in the United States of America owned a microwave oven. This isn’t an article about food, however, it’s an article using the microwave as a metaphor - a metaphor for what some have called the pre-eminent negative aspect of the Millennial generation, entitlement.

In a recent article at Salon, “Are millennials delusional?” explored the findings of two psychologists who studied trends in Millennial attitudes toward work and success. Essentially, the findings were that Millennials had high or moderate expectations of their own success while at the same time holding on to low expectations of the work load demand required to get that success. In short, they want it microwaved - quick, and reasonably good.

But isn’t this simply indicative of a larger trend in the United States? Haven’t we always been a “get rich quick” society that celebrates “new money” (i.e. the Great Gatsby, the land owners of colonial America)? Additionally, haven’t we always assumed that our youngest generations did not share our work ethic? Weren’t G.I.’s disparaging their Silent and Boomer children for a lack of civic focus in the late 50’s and early 60’s? If you’re an X’er like me, don’t you remember our generational slur, “slacker”?

That is not to say that the presence of this trend in our culture is good. The diminishing of work ethic combined with a demand of material goods is an insane combination. While I’m willing to credit particular generations with certain particular dysfunctions, I’m not sure that the Millennials deserve all of the blame here.

Regardless, this is worth addressing for Millennials and their little brother/sister generation - the upcoming unnamed (Homeland? Pluralist?) adaptive-type generation. Fact is, yes, you do have to work at some of this stuff and all of the technology in the world isn’t going to reduce work (that’s a Genesis 3 issue), it’s just going to change it. Wikipedia may have made it easier to find the source material for a research paper, but you can’t just cut and paste Wikipedia.

What do you notice about this yourself? Do you think that your generation has a great work ethic? How does it compare with the generations that you see around you? I would love to hear your comments in the Disqus comments below or on Facebook.

Jesus Is On The Mainline by Mavis Staples - It’s Music...

Fri, 10 May 2013 10:34:14 -0400

Jesus Is On The Mainline by Mavis Staples - It’s Music Friday - You can’t get much better than Mavis Staples when it comes to soulful renditions of Gospel classics. I love the way that this song starts off with “He already died for your freedom, tell Him what you want.” That’s the right place for us to start with our prayers when we’re asking the Lord for stuff. In churchy terms, this could be called starting a prayer off with adoration - a recognition of what God has already done for us, especially through the work of Christ. It puts the rest of your prayer and your petitions in perspective. It’s hard to ask God for the unnecessary when you see your Savior bleeding on the cross and pouring out His blood for your soul’s freedom.

And yet at the same time, this song doesn’t tell you to shrink away from asking for things. This point is key in one of the things that Martin Luther says about prayer in his Large Catechism. Luther is bold enough to say that essentially if you’re not asking for something in your prayer, what you’re trying to do is “repay God” (paragraph 25 of the Lord’s Prayer section of the LC), and that what you’re doing is actually actively evil because it is mistaking you for God. So when Mavis sings to “tell Him what you want,” it gets to the heart of how God would have us pray in Scripture (Luke 11/Matthew 7).

So just sing to yourself all day today - “He already died for your freedom, tell Him what you want….”

When People Talk…I’m not sure what Wells Fargo has...

Thu, 09 May 2013 11:00:03 -0400

When People Talk…I’m not sure what Wells Fargo has to do with when people talk or what it means to start a conversation with them at the end of this ad. What I do know is this: Wells Fargo gets what Christians call “evangelism” better than what a lot of Christians do, and possibly even what it means to be Church together.

It starts with conversation, talking to other people and seeing who they are and letting them see who Christ is through your being His mask - fulfilling the simple vocation of being a fellow human, a fellow citizen, just a “fellow”.

Maybe we should start running this ad on Sunday mornings…

Righteousness Fail. We all love memes…I think. But some...

Wed, 08 May 2013 11:00:14 -0400

Righteousness Fail. We all love memes…I think. But some memes make me cringe or remind me of something theological. This one reminds me of righteousness and how we fail at it without realizing it.

The girl in the meme is obviously asking for your sympathy and congratulations for not killing anyone. She’s looking for her “attagirl”, but she wouldn’t get it from Jesus - because with Jesus, the issue of motivation comes up, and her motivation is self serving. Why isn’t she killing someone? Because she wants to stay out of jail. It has nothing to do with Jesus, it has everything to do with her - she’s at the center of her universe.

This illustrates how difficult righteousness actually is. There are times that we keep ourselves within the correct “righteous boundaries” but are still effectively sinning because we’re at the center of our righteousness, which then becomes unrighteous because it has a sinner at the center of it.

When Christ came, He didn’t come out of compulsion or out of self-serving avoidance of pain —- He came out of love to embrace pain for us on the cross. And yeah, His sacrifice for us, “that’s all I got”….

Creativity

Tue, 07 May 2013 11:00:08 -0400

Creativity

FSU, Obadiah, and Johnny Cash

Mon, 06 May 2013 11:00:28 -0400

I have been a campus pastor for my entire ministerial life. I started off as a vicar at the University of Florida and then was called to University Lutheran Church and Student Center on the campus of Florida State University in Tallahassee. As anyone who has ever been to a LCMS seminary will tell you, a vicar after his vicarage knows everything. Since my vicarage had trained me in the ways and skills of campus ministry, I arrived with confidence on Florida State’s campus knowing that I knew what it was to do campus ministry. The only problem was that I was no longer at the University of Florida. It wasn’t just that the orange and blue of the Gators had changed to the garnet and gold of the Seminoles; I was at a distinctly different place, and I was finding out that I had to learn a new campus from the ground up.

One of my first clues as to the difference between the University of Florida where I had been and Florida State University where I found myself now was in one of the first Bible studies that I led at my new distinctly “Florida State” church. I led with what would have worked quite well with my students at the University of Florida, a Bible study based on a somewhat obscure book of the Bible that related the story of the Scripture with something from pop culture. I led with the now infamous, “Obadiah and Johnny Cash” Bible study. Say what you will about the idea of trying to get college students excited about Obadiah, I whole heartedly believe that it would have worked with my students at the University of Florida. In my new situation, however, it flopped. The Word of God did not return void, but it had not been contextualized into the situation I found myself. I might as well have dropped Dr. Paul Raabe’s Anchor Bible commentary on Obadiah in their laps and urged them to read and inwardly digest.

The Thursday morning after that Bible Study, I decided that I needed to again take up a spiritual discipline that I had started while I was at the University of Florida. I needed to walk. I did not necessarily need to “prayer walk,” although there was quite a bit of time spent praying. I just needed to walk around my new campus and get to know it. I needed to leaf through the cultural pages of what it meant to be at Florida State University. I needed to overhear conversations. I needed to read the campus newspaper. I needed to see what people were wearing. I needed to exegete my campus.

The word “exegete” literally means to “lead out of”. The Greek root “hegeisthai” for “to lead” combined with the prefix “ex” for “out of”. Even deeper into the word, we find that the root of “hegeisthai” is linked to the Greek “sageyo”, to seek out. Combining all of this etymology we come up with a word definition that might say much about how we might go about the ministerial task: “to lead out of by seeking out.” I was to lead the Word of God out of an understanding of my campus which had to be sought out, not simply assumed.

Over and over again - Theology of the Cross Thesis 2

Sun, 05 May 2013 11:00:19 -0400

Practice makes perfect, that’s what they say. Except that “they” in this case is Luther’s fictional anti-theologians, the “Theologians of Glory”. The Theologians of Glory have as their theological premise that God is seeking to bring them glory through showing His glory. In short, they are theologians who have gotten their theology, it seems, via a bad game of “telephone”. Most of the content seems to sound somewhat orthodox, but mixed up and confused.

In thesis 2 of the Heidelberg Disputation (which forms the basis for the Theology of the Cross), Luther says that “Much less can human works, which are done over and over again with the aid of natural precepts, so to speak, lead to that end” [“that end” is “righteousness” as is explained in the first thesis].

As human beings, we’re used to things not working out the first time. The first time we tried to walk we fell, the first time we tried to dance we awkwardly shook our hips, the first time we tried to write we misspelled, and so on and so forth. We’re used to things not working and then trying them again over and over and over again - and thereby perfecting ourselves in those areas.

The problem is, as Luther is pointing out here, that there is no formula for getting righteousness “right”. Even when Peter asks Jesus about how many times he should forgive his neighbor (implying that at the last time Peter would have completed his righteous duty), Jesus responds with the Hebrew/Aramaic equivalent of “infinity times infinity”. You’re just not going to get this right - only God is.

That’s why it’s so interesting that when Jesus goes to John the Baptist in order to get Baptized that when John balks, Jesus says that the Baptism should occur “to fulfill all righteousness”. John had baptized loads of people before Jesus - it wasn’t an issue of the number of times, but it is an issue of the identity of the person. It’s not how often, it’s who - and the “who” here is Jesus.

Jesus didn’t die on a cross over and over again. He didn’t do a whole lot of anything over and over again - but what He did was completed when He did it. What Jesus does for you now is forgive you - and He does do that over and over again - He has to. But it’s not that He’s getting better and better at forgiving your sins, or even that you’re getting better and better at receiving that forgiveness. It’s not how often, it’s who. And thank goodness, the who isn’t you.

"This was God’s country, this frightful and this angry land; but if it’s His will, the..."

Sat, 04 May 2013 11:00:16 -0400

“This was God’s country, this frightful and this angry land; but if it’s His will, the worst of it still might make me a better man…”

- “Our Song” by Joe Henry

"New Legalisms", Old mediocrities, and the Theology of Glory

Fri, 03 May 2013 14:49:00 -0400

Anthony Bradley recently made quite a splash by posting “Being a “radical,” “missional,” Christian is slowly becoming the “new legalism.” We need more ordinary God and people lovers (Matt 22:36-40).” on twitter and then following it up with his blog post.

And sure, I see where the guy is coming from - an anti-pietist sentiment that has existed in the halls of Post-Reformation theology offices while most of us Christians in the pew have tried to figure out the difference between what the pastor is saying in the Sunday sermon as opposed to when he’s making a bid for more volunteers for the breakfast for low-income kids at the local elementary school. Pastors and the religious/theological elite want to make sure that grace dominates the official message of most churches, but are often unsure how that translates into something other than a blobish Christian who just shows up on a Sunday (whom we will then accuse of “consumeristic Christianity”).

So we come up with a compromise…well..actually…more often we come up with a paradox, or maybe even a hypocrisy. We say one thing, and then we say another thing, and hope that people weren’t really listening when we said the first thing.

And what we come up with, Lutherans - you should get this, is just another form of the “theology of glory”, a theology that says “I’m ok, and you’re probably not as ok as me.” Being the particularly adaptive sort of nasty little theological virus, the theology of glory puts the “theologian” as the chief diviner of what is good and what isn’t. So when David Platt tells you have to be a “radical” Christian as opposed to another I suppose more leafy type of a Christian (see: etymology), there’s a real temptation to fall into theology of glory. When Anthony Bradley wants to unburden poor narcissistic Millennials of the expectations of the church for them, there’s a real temptation to fall into theology of glory. A theology of glory calls a good thing bad and a bad thing good. That’s a disease that needs an antidote - like the cross.

Luther would say that a theology of the cross “calls a thing what it is”, and let’s face it, we don’t like that. Because if we’re calling a thing what it is, we have to point out that some of us are grubby little legalists just waiting to give a “Hallelujah!” when someone like David Platt comes along and we can abuse and distort his ideas to fit our need for self-fulfillment. But some of us are such scared little pansies that we fear anything that doesn’t fit the mediocrity of our lives for the past year.

So let’s be clear, being radical and/or missional isn’t going to save your soul, but ignoring those books isn’t going to do it either. If your functional savior is a new legalism or if it’s an old mediocrity, you’re still dead. Jesus raises to Life, and Life is apparent.

p.s. as a point of academic dispute, I really question Bradley’s conception of Christian history over the last 100 years. It baffles me to think that Boomers left the church because it was telling them “to be good” too much.

“Delicate Cycle” by the Uncluded - I’m going...

Fri, 03 May 2013 13:45:00 -0400

“Delicate Cycle” by the Uncluded - I’m going to try to start up some MusicFriday-ness again, but this time it’s going to be different. It used to be that Music Friday was just music that I liked and I would then terrorize people with - I like that, that’s not going to stop. I’m still going to terrorize you with my bad taste in music that you probably won’t like and take moral objections to. Hooray!

But I never said much of why I liked the songs - and that’s a travesty, because it usually has something to do with Jesus. Ahem, I said “usually”, so sometimes I’m going to post something that just annoys you.

“Delicate Cycle” is more the former (about Jesus) than the latter (to annoy you). That said, I can’t imagine Aesop Rock being a Christian (although I haven’t looked into it), but what Aesop and Kimya are talking about in “Delicate Cycle” is the fragility of the human spirit - something Christians know a lot about. Aesop starts the song talking about cutting off body parts and mailing them to people that apparently he wants to make a connection with. Because that’s how much we want to make connections with people - we’re willing to cut pieces of our selves off for them…probably more often figuratively than literally. But even Jesus talks about cutting things off for the sake of a greater wholeness - in a different way - but the concept is there.

And while Aesop’s self mutilating stuff is great, when Kimya starts telling us about her parents, we really get a sense of how we handle this fragile life - with people that are willing to be community for us, for them, for everyone. I mean, isn’t that what the church is supposed to look like? The lunch lady that makes the weird kids at school feel loved? The laundromat owner who lets his daughter spread laughter to people that need to wash their sins away? (read that again).

So here it is, installment number 1 of “Music Friday revisited”…let’s play.

The Price of Community and Churches

Fri, 03 May 2013 11:00:10 -0400

In the Indian state of Delhi stands “Ashok Nagar” and despite having 200,000 residents, Ashok Nagar still isn’t considered to be a community. Ashok Nagar is one of the many “unauthorized colonies” that are sprouting in Indian states. Essentially “squatter villages”, these unauthorized colonies are not officially sanctioned by anyone except the people living in them. They have little to no infrastructure, but the prices make it cheap enough to live in Ashok Nagar - and for some that is all that matters.

Ashok Nagar reminds me of many campus ministries that I know of in my own denomination, as well other non-campus churches. Often poorly funded and/or supported, these ministries tend to try to live under the radar. Some thrive, most don’t. But we get this sense that if we keep to ourselves, that it is better and cheaper for us. But is it?

I used to be one sort of leader(or bureaucrat) in my denomination’s campus ministry sphere, now I’m another sort of that same leader/bureaucrat but I’ve retained one job throughout - I call campus ministries. I call campus ministries and ask them if they would like to be a part of a network of other campus ministries that are doing the same thing that they are. The usual answer? “I’d rather live in Ashok Nagar”. Well - at least something like that. I also work on a judicatory board that oversees churches in two states, and some of those churches refuse to pay into missions funds and things as well…they too would rather live in Ashok Nagar.

But living in Ashok Nagar isn’t really a good thing. Your sewers are overcrowded, your telephone service sucks, there’s no police, and you live in the constant threat of being evicted. Likewise, trying to live outside of community as a church is difficult. It’s doable, but it’s cramped. Even if you’re one of the few “illegally constructed conclaves for the rich,” you’re still living in a way that denies you the ability to help your neighbor because you have to focus on being “unauthorized”.

That said, I understand the need to be autonomous sometimes comes with the necessity of becoming “unauthorized”, but I wonder if that’s where we go first. I wonder if we would simply participate and pay some of the price of community together a little bit before we went off the grid - if then maybe we would find ourselves with a little less anxiety and a little more sustainability and freedom.

I’d love to hear how the greater community of your churches and/or campus ministries work or don’t work in your area and/or your denomination. Please use facebook or the comments below.