Prayer for Monday

Monday - Gratitude for the Church

Lord, we are grateful that you have not called us to serve you in isolation, but have joined us to your body, the Church. We thank you that we have companions to work alongside, to laugh with and to lean on. Grant us, today, eyes to see and ears to hear the movement of your Spirit in the midst of your people. Forgive us for our readiness to find fault in our brothers and sisters, for being so quick to argue and complain. We ask Lord that you will continue forming a spirit of gratitude within us so that the spirit of cooperation can take hold.

Today, express gratitude to one of your fellow disciples and share it also with someone else. Let us be a people known for gossiping about the virtues and value we see in one another.

Season of Prayer - Week 1

Scripture Passage for Daily Reflection

Acts 1 - 2:4 (NIV 2011, via biblegateway.com)

Thoughts for this week

After Jesus was raised from the dead, he spent time with his disciples...erasing their fears through his presence. But then he ascended to be with the Father. And of course for the disciples, after three years of intense discipleship training followed by a post-graduate seminar in resurrection, the logical next step would be to launch the global expansion of the gospel, right?

Nope. They sat around in Jerusalem for seven weeks.

What did they do while they were waiting for the Spirit that Jesus promised? Well, we don’t know everything that happened during that time, but we do know a few things. They spent time together. They worshipped together. They prayed together, a lot. They continued preparing themselves for the life Jesus had called them to. They lived in Jerusalem what would soon be lived throughout all Judea, Samaria and to the ends of the world.

This is precisely what we intend to focus on over the next seven weeks. As Christ Journey prepares to launch us out on a new church planting effort and as we prepare also to begin fundraising for the Intentional People ministry, we feel convicted to spend an intentional season in prayer and worship to the One Who Is Risen!

During this first week our prayers center on the issue of gratitude and joy. As people who worship the Risen Lord Jesus, we indeed have much to be grateful for. The tomb is empty and the Kingdom is at hand! We express gratitude for the ways in which we are being formed into the image and likeness of Christ as individuals and as a community. We rejoice in the friends who are hearing the gospel with new ears and those who are listening for the first time. We are grateful that the God in whom we live and move and have our being has seen fit to invite us in as junior partners in God’s mission to restore and reconcile all creation.

We are grateful for a community of faithful friends and co-laborers whose partnership in the gospel has already been a source of encouragement and support for the ministry of proclaiming the light of Christ in the dark places.

We rejoice in the Bread of Life that provides sustenance, even in the desert; the Rock which provides shelter, even in the wilderness.

We are grateful that by taking the risk of moving out on a limb in faith, we are provided with a more unobstructed view of God’s work in our own lives and the lives of those around us.

We rejoice and we are grateful, because the God of Love is teaching us to love others.

Thank you for joining us in this season of prayer.

Prayer for Easter Sunday

Lord we are grateful that you saw fit to create a vast and expansive universe. We are grateful that you formed humanity and placed us within this place to bear witness, through our very existence, to The One Who Makes All Things New.

We are grateful that you sent your only Son to conquer death, break the cycle of sin and repair the brokenness of creation. We are grateful that you have not left us to wander alone, but have sent the Holy Spirit as our guide and counselor. We are grateful that you hold together your people, the Body of Christ, to strengthen one another and lift a voice a praise. We rejoice and are extremely grateful that your power was displayed over death...we thank you, God, that the tomb is empty!

We rejoice because He is Risen! Lord, continue to open our eyes, our ears and our hearts so that we can see, hear and be moved to rejoice at the good things you are doing.

Spend a few moments in prayer today expressing gratitude for the Risen Christ; for God’s involvement in creation, in the ongoing story of humanity and in our very lives.

Season of Prayer

We have recently begun the process of developing a new organization called Intentional People. This ministry will serve to foster:

1) Collaboration in missional life by creating space for conversation, online community and inspirational stories of whole-life discipleship among "normal" people.

2) Cultivation of missional disciples through training, resources and spiritual formation practices.

Before we attempt any fundraising or official beginning for Intentional People, we want to be people who are intentional about prayer and following the leading of the Spirit. We have invited a group of family and friends to join us over the next seven weeks - from Easter Sunday to Pentecost Sunday - for a season of communal prayer. Each week I'll be sending out a scripture passage for reflection, a weekly devotional and daily prayers. I am also posting them all here and I invite you to join us as well.

Each week during this season of prayer we will focus on a different theme. Each day we will approach that theme from a different perspective. Here are the themes we'll use for the next 7 weeks.

Week 1 - Gratitude and Joy

Week 2 - Wisdom and Discernment

Week 3 - Faithfulness and Courage

Week 4 - Personal Discipleship and Spiritual Formation

Week 5 - Partners and Community

Week 6 - Mission and Commission

Week 7 - Fruit and Harvest

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Sunday - God

Monday - Church

Tuesday - The Local Community

Wednesday - The Global Community

Thursday - The Poor and Oppressed

Friday - Ourselves

Review of McLaren's Newest Books: Part 1 of 3

Some authors seem to write in such a way that many of their books are best read together. For me, Brian McLaren is one of those authors. A good example would be his popular books The Secret Message of Jesus (SMOJ) and Everything Must Change (EMC). I read SMOJ before EMC was released and found myself asking, "so what?" - its a pretty good book, but seems to stop short of what we should do with this kingdom perspective of the gospel. On the other hand, a friend of mine read EMC without reading SMOJ and felt that it was too political without much theological teeth. Read together, you may still disagree, but at least you have his whole case laid out.

Over the next few days I'd like to post a review of two more McLaren books that I think are best read in tandem: A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questions That are Transforming the Faith (not to be confused with the similarly titled New Kind of CHRISTIAN) and Naked Spirituality: Life With God in 12 Simple Words. I confess that my reviews pretty much ignore his major project in both books - not that they aren't valuable or worth considering, but I found his subplot to be much more intriguing. Also, my review doesn't attempt to go into the hyperbole in McLaren's work or the limitations of his approach - for one example of a review which touches on these issues regarding New Kind of Christianity, check out David Fitch's post.

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Part 1

One of the common themes that arises in my conversations with Christians and non-Christians alike has to do with how to deal with the seemingly irreconcilable beliefs and positions among Christians. This disparity is only heightened by the antagonism that surfaces within the church when these differences come up (consider the firestorm surrounding Rob Bell’s book Love Wins).

The question that then naturally comes from non-Christians is, “If you people can’t agree with each other, what on earth do you have to say to me?” The question for Christians, if they aren’t in the pretend-everyone-else-isn’t-really-faithful camp, is, “What the heck are we supposed to do about all this?!”

Though I am a committed disciple of Jesus, I must admit that at different times I still wrestle with both of these questions. I move from times of certainty into periods of doubt and struggle and then sometimes into seasons of despair...and then back again. My understanding of God, people, the church and faith are far from static.

This past year I read Brian McLaren’s, A New Kind of Christianity: Ten Questio

ns That are Transforming the Faith (New York: Harper One, 2010). In this book McLaren discusses various “big” questions about faith: questions about narrative, authority, God, Jesus, gospel, the Church, sex, the future, pluralism and “what do we do now.”

In the midst of this larger project he also describes a progression through seven quests of faith that he labels (with a controlling metaphor of the light spectrum) as survival (red), security (orange), power (yellow), independence (green), individuality (blue), honesty (indigo) and ubuntu (violet). Ubuntu is an African word referring to “one-anotherness, interconnectedness, joined-in-the-common-goodness and profound commitment to the well being of all” (233). He then points to a possible eighth quest of “sacredness” (ultraviolet light perhaps) and more, as yet unseen, quests beyond that (drawn from his conviction that perfection is a never-ending process of becoming).

Of course, McLaren has a way of unsettling and often offending more traditionally-minded Christians (and even not-so-traditionally minded ones). Though I don’t always find his conclusions thoroughly convincing, I do find his questions to be quite powerful and thought provoking.

As he works through what he believes are natural progressions of faith, he describes what Christianity looks like when it adopts (his description of) Greco-Roman concepts of static perfection rather than the more Jewish concept of perfection as a dynamic process of continually becoming. This understanding is similar to (but less artistic than) CS Lewis’ description in his book The Last Battle, where heaven is depicted as an ever expanding fractal where we are called to continuosly move “further up and further in”.

In the midst of his description of these different stages I found myself repeatedly wondering how people experiencing each phase could reconcile with one another. He seemed to suggest that the earlier stages can (and do) easily devolve into unhealthy or even evil perversions of the Gospel when held too tightly or for too long. How then does someone further up and further in not condemn the earlier expressions? He answers this somewhat in his description of the quest for ubuntu, where he states:

An ubuntu or violet faith will require us to stop seeing the earlier ranges as inferior, wrong or bad. Rather, we must see them as necessary. Each offers something essential to the larger human quest. Each adds an essential band in the full spectrum of light. And contrary to honest indigo thinking, the ideas and beliefs of the other ranges in the spectrum aren’t actually dishonest for the people who hold them: they are simply the way reality honestly looks from that vantage point. From red, the world honestly looks red. From orange it looks orange, and so on. Theologically, we could say that people in a certain zone of a religion or denomination are seeing God in the only way the can see God, and as only they can see God. Yes, it is ultimately a mistake for green, yellow, or blue people to say that God is only green, yellow, or blue, although this is what people at these stages will tend to say. But that is no greater a mistake than for indigo people to attack them for doing so, which is what indigo people will tend to do. 235.

I remember thinking as I read this paragraph toward the end of the book that McLaren could (and perhaps should) write a whole new volume specifically devoted to this concept - which, at least in part, he seems to have done in his next book - otherwise, the polarizing nature of the arguments against the "Greco-Roman narrative" will likely serve to destroy much of the positive implications of his writing. We’ll turn our attention to that book and then briefly to the relationship between these two in the following parts of this review.

Lessons From Camping

I don’t get to hang out with my three boys (7, 5 and 3 years old) nearly as much as I’d like. I have friends who rarely see their kids awake accept on their days off, so I can’t complain too much, but still, I relish times like I had this weekend. At 3:30 Friday afternoon, Conner, Micah and I headed down to Belton for a 2 night camping trip with Conner’s cub scout pack. We’ve done a little camping together (see my previous post for a glimpse into how that’s gone) but this was the first time that the three of us headed out of town for such a trip.

I was a little nervous about how Micah would do. He’s only 5 and tends to have second thoughts on more adventurous activities. But, I am happy to say that not only was he fine, we had a fantastic time.

I’ve been reflecting on a few things that happened this weekend...and surprise, surprise, I thought I’d share them here.

We made a deal on the way to the campsite that the boys would help me set up our tent and other stuff before they started running around playing with the other boys. They aren’t really old enough for me to teach them all the intricate details of choosing the perfect camping spot (like how to find where the shade is going to be during the hot part of the day or which direction the wind will be coming from and set up against or with it depending on the expected weather). BUT, they can put tent poles together, help get the stakes in the ground, decide where they want their sleeping bags, etc. I wanted them to have some ownership in the process; I wanted them to feel a sense of pride in our accomplishment, even if that was just setting up a tent that I could set up in the dark.

They did. And it made me happy.

It also made me tired, because the 15 minute process took nearly an hour and I had to count to ten a few times so I didn’t tie them both to a tree. We got the tent set up to my OCD standards, but I had to sacrifice my competitive desire to have my campsite up faster and more efficiently than anyone in a 500 mile radius...because it wasn’t MY campsite, it was OUR campsite. It isn’t a new revelation to me that I have a tendency to want to just do things myself, but afterward, as Micah sat playing happily in the tent he helped “build,” I was reminded why its worth it to swallow my stupid ego and invite others into the process.

Conner and Micah are so different. Conner wanted nothing more than to run and play and fall and run and play and fall with his friends. He was filthy in about 3 minutes.

I love how, even when bigger kids are around, the group tends to follow Conner’s lead. And I love that (for the most part) it isn’t because he’s being bossy. He’s a good kid, full of joy and confidence. When he isn’t trying to play games on your iPhone, he’s right in the middle of whatever excitement there is to be found.

Micah on the other hand just wanted to play in the tent. He looked out the window with his binoculars, he laid on my air mattress and went through my stuff (yeah, that’s right, I brought an air mattress), he sat at the door and did a “radio show” of the kickball game the bigger kids were playing (which btw, was hilarious). He was the epitome of peaceful contentment. Then, when he was ready, he got out of the tent and played kickball...until he discovered that one of the moms had brought bubbles.

That night as we cooked dinner I knew my boys were in for a treat. I had brought the cast-iron grill for my camp stove and had some fresh asparagus and a couple perfectly marinaded, inch-thick elk steaks (thanks to my father-in-law’s hunting prowess and generous sharing spirit). They’d asked for Ramen soup for dinner, which I was also preparing for them. Suffice it to say, few people at the camp were set up to feast as richly as my boys were. Ramen. Steak. Grilled asparagus. And few dads were as excited as I was to shower their kids with such an extravagant banquet.

But, though they’d acted differently earlier in the day, when everything was ready, they were completely uninterested in my delicious offerings...they just wanted those styrofoam cups full of noodles.

I mean, seriously, who doesn’t want to eat steak?

I tried to reason with them. I thought about making them eat what had been cooked. But then I looked at their utterly content Ramen covered faces...and shirts...and laps. Sometimes we get too excited about giving someone something that WE really want - and then get offended when they aren’t as excited as we are. Its not that they are ungrateful...they just want noodle soup.

In the end, I realized that what was most important was that they were eating supper and enjoying it. Besides, this way, I got two steaks. I ate them both.

The next day, after a relatively uneventful night of sleep (which was never a given and thus was eventful itself) we began a day of hikes, dodgeball, lessons about weather and an unexpected nap. In one of our outings Micah had spotted a drink machine which happened to be about as far from our campsite as possible. I didn’t have any change with me but promised we’d see if there was some in the car later. As it turned out, there was a dollar but Micah was starting to get grumpy so I made a deal with him that if he’d lay down and rest for a while we’d go back after and get a soda (he was quite excited about the promise of a cherry coke).

After waiting patiently (mostly) for a couple hours (with a 45 minute nap in the middle) Micah and I began the trek back to the coke machine...which as it turns out, wasn’t working. To his credit he didn’t throw a fit, but by the look of sadness and disappointment you’d have thought he just found out I was selling him to a band of gypsies...

So, I asked him if he’d like to sneak off and secretly roast a marshmallow - that no one else would be getting. Instant relief from the cherry cokeless depression! You should have seen the look on his face as he hid behind a tarp and ate that slightly charred contraband sugar-puff. I know its a little cliche, but sometimes disappointment opens the door for unexpected blessings...and marshmallows.

That night at the pack campfire, Conner was shocked when he was called up in front of the whole group (about 75 folks) while the pack master told everyone about his fundraiser for Japan (which you can read about here). At first he looked excited, then nervous, then incredibly proud as everybody clapped and cheered for my awesome 7 year old...I may have been just a little proud as well.

Afterward, he was so excited he couldn’t stand still. There is difference between doing things for recognition and being unexpectedly recognized for something you’ve done. I hope and pray that Conner will grow up knowing that distinction; cherishing the joy that comes from helping others and continuing to serve for the purpose of serving because you know that “if God were here he would do it”...and getting that very pleasant surprise when you didn’t see the praise coming.

During that same campfire, the boys sang a camp favorite: “Ghost Chickens In the Sky.” Conner doesn’t remember it this way, but that kinda scared him on our first cub scout camping trip...and it had the same effect on Micah. As we walked back to camp, Micah said, “Dad that song was scary. Are there really ghost chickens?” I promised him there weren’t and the song is meant to be funny, not scary.

He was less than convinced.

As I lit our lantern and started getting more marshmallows ready for roasting (this time they were for everyone), he was still scared. The rest of the boys were playing run-around-in-the-dark-and-try-to-break-your-neck. Micah was not among them. I asked if he’d like to sit in the tent while I got our stuff ready. “No, Dad I just want to be with you. Don’t leave me, okay?”

This wasn’t a new experience. Our kids always want us to be with them when they’re scared, but when he reached up and grabbed my hand, I wasn’t even a little frustrated that I had to work one handed. I couldn’t stop thinking about how amazing it was that this little dude who was terrified of ghost chickens swooping out of the sky, felt safer out in the open next to me than in the comfort of the chicken-proof tent that he helped build.

And rightly so, because I’d sooner let those damn chickens peck out my eye-balls than so much as scratch this precious little boy.

We rolled back up to the house around noon on Sunday. We were all dirty, smelly and tired...as we normally are on Sundays at noon...and Tuesdays at three and Fridays at eight.

Now, its 2 am Monday morning. I’m at work, my wife and boys are at home asleep and I can’t help but think that I may possibly be the luckiest man on the planet.

Japanese Destruction and a 7 Year-Old Prophet

So...yesterday, Conner - our unbelievably brilliant and compassionate 7 year old - saw a commercial about the continuing devastation in Japan. He came running up to Rachel screaming, “Mom! Mom! There’s tsunamis and earthquakes in Japan and they say we need to help them! I NEED TO HELP THEM!”

Rachel explained that Japan is a very long way away and maybe the best way we can help them is by sending money to a group of people that are already there doing what they can.

“Oh, money. I don’t have any money.”

Rachel asked him, “Well, how do you get money?” (which, coincidentally, happens to be a question she and I ask each other all the time!)

He replied, “Well, I work for it.”

“Okay, so what if you worked to make cookies or something to sell and then you could give that money to the people in Japan?”

He thought for a moment and then excitedly responded, “I could make caramel apples.”

After a little thinking and talking with the wise BooBoo (Rachel’s mom) it was decided that caramel apples may not be the best option, but fudge would be good.

That afternoon, after I got filled in on the situation, I asked Conner, “So what’s up with Japan and giving them money?”

“Dad, its terrible there are earthquakes and tsunamis and Japan is in big trouble...it could be completely destroyed! That would be awful...a whole country and all its people gone forever! The world would have one less country...Dad, Japan could become extinct...just like Atlantis! We have to do something!”

He was so upset - it made me a little sad and so very proud to see my son not only deeply concerned about the suffering of others, but equally convinced that it was HIS responsibility to do something about it. So I asked him. “Why do you care? Why should you do something?” The next words out of his mouth were not the words of a child, they were the words of a prophet.

He looked at me, very serious as though I’d just asked him the dumbest question ever: “Because if God were here, he would do something.”

When I composed myself enough to answer I simply said, “You’re right. And I think He’s going to.”

Perhaps this is precisely why Jesus told us we must become like little children if we wish to inherit the Kingdom. Seven year-olds haven't learned that they can't really do anything about suffering. They don't know that the proper response is to shake our head and move on to the next channel. They don't realize that Japan's problems aren't our problems.

In fairness, many people have given both their time and their money to this disaster and to recent ones. We witnessed first hand the generosity and compassion of people from all over the country during the aftermath of Katrina. Our small congregation in Mandeville housed between 20 and 200 out of town volunteers every day for an entire year. So, I don't want to take away from that.

But we've all experienced the desensitizing effect of seeing suffering on the news everyday. We've all, myself included, changed the channel because we didn't want to hear about it. Sometimes we move on because we feel overwhelmed at the enormity of the problems...sometimes we just don't feel anything.

I confess, there have been more than a few times when I've seen images of starving children in Africa and it seemed too far away, to un-real to even register. My son's reaction yesterday became the finger of the prophet Nathan accusing me of being the man who stole the poor shepherd's lamb (2 Samuel 12:1-7).

Lord, forgive me for allowing my heart to grow calloused to the suffering of others, whether they are near or far. Create in me a clean heart, the heart of a child and the heart of a father. Give me eyes to see suffering as you do. Not only something to be mourned, but something to be entered into and reconciled.

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So, tonight the plans have been made, supplies for fudge have been bought and Conner wrote the follow letter (with an addendum by Rachel). I’ve copied the following from Rachel’s blog:

From Conner (7 years old):

I'm selling fudge candies because there are tsunamis, earthquakes, and radiation leaks going on in Japan. I'm saving money to give to the Red Cross to help the people in Japan. Because if they don't get enough money to fix everything, the whole country could become extinct! That's happened before you know - we don't want Japan to end up like Atlantis!

I'm helping Japan because me and my brothers want to do what God would do if he was here. So please buy some of my fudge.

A note from Mom:
The suggested donation for one bag of fudge (approx 1/2 lb) is $10. Please comment on this blog, message me on facebook, or send me an email (rachel.wells@yahoo.com) if you would like to buy or donate. Out of town friends and family, I still haven't figured out how to get fudge to you guys. I think it's gotten too hot to mail it. It has been suggested that if you would like to send a donation, Conner can deliver your fudge to needy and/or forgotten people in the Burleson area (some single moms we know, nursing homes, etc...) If you have any other suggestions I'd gladly take them!

Update to Important Announcement

So...Happy day after April Fools day!

Here are the top 5 reasons that I would not be heading up a Lakewood Church plant...

5. They’ve never, ever, ever heard of me. Wouldn’t really matter if they had...but they haven’t.

4. They would never, ever want to hire me if they ever did hear of me...which, again, they haven’t.

3. I’m not tall enough to be a mega-church pastor.

2. I agree that God wants us to have our best life now, but I fundamentally disagree with Joel Osteen on how we should understand the meaning of that statement.

1. While I can appreciate that people, perhaps even MANY people, have come to or come back to faith because of the warm and fuzzy Lakewood message, I also appreciate that many people have come to faith in terribly toxic fundamentalist and extremely loopy liberal theological circles. None of which are theological platforms I endorse or could in good conscience perpetuate - even by proxy.

I want to thank my friends who would not for one second believe that I would sell my soul in such a way and I’m a little unsettled that a couple family members took the bait. ;) My only consolation is that they claim they didn’t realize I was referring to Joel Osteen’s church. I’m going to choose to believe that! And my heart is strangely warmed that they thought (as only loving parents could) that mega-church headhunters would seek me out...but seriously people, they’ve never, ever, ever heard of me!