Prayer for Thursday

Thursday - Gratitude for God’s Solidarity with the Poor and Oppressed

Come, let us bow down and bend the knee: let us kneel before the Lord our Maker.

God, we confess that we regularly fail to love the least as you have called us to do. We rejoice that our weakness reveals your strength, because we know that you have not forgotten the plight of the poor. We pray, Lord, that no one today finds themselves without hope, without a glimpse of the empty tomb. We thank you God that continue to proclaim hope to those in seemingly hopeless situations. We ask God that you will enable us to see the opportunities we have today to reflect your love for those that society has forgotten, that circumstances have been harsh toward, that others have neglected or abused.

We thank you God that you continue to give us new opportunities to love. And we thank you God that so often when we open our eyes to the people behind the label “poor,” we find generosity, compassion, love and wisdom far beyond our own.

Today, make eye contact and extend a simple acknowledgment of shared humanity to someone you may have normally ignored, missed or dismissed. Take a few minutes to listen and look for reasons to express gratitude to God for this beloved child.

Prayer for Wednesday

Wednesday - Gratitude for the Global Community

Lord God, we rejoice and are grateful that you hear the cries of the orphan in Uganda, the terrified in Afghanistan, the weary but hopeful in Libya, the oppressed in China, the silenced in North Korea, the poor in Brazil, the devastated in Japan and the desperate in Haiti. We thank you God that we can lay our heads down at night knowing that you are fully aware of the situation that each person on this planet is experiencing. We are grateful Jesus that you are continually calling your disciples to action across the globe.

We are grateful, Lord, that we have the opportunity to hear the stories of your children all over the world and we thank you, Lord, that these stories can teach, transform and inspire us, just as they also often convict, chastise and bring us to lament. We thank you, O Lord, that you are not a regional God...you are the Father of all!

If you regularly watch, read or listen to world news, listen for something happening in the global community that you can express gratitude to God for. If you don’t usually check in on these things, (probably because its so depressing) try doing so today with an eye toward gratitude and thanksgiving.

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

This is the final installment in a 3 part series reviewing two of Brian McLaren's books which 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.

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For many of us engaging in the work of missional church planting there is a temptation to view those who “don’t get it” as inferior. It becomes accepted (in some circles) to sit around mocking Christians who want nothing more than to attend a worship gathering and “be fed.” I confess that I’ve been guilty of this. What precisely does this achieve?

Again, it is well and good to challenge one another, but perhaps we must recognize that seasons progress as they progress and it doesn’t do any good to mock summer for being hot. Unless you’re Texas, you don’t get to skip seasons...and when we try to skip over the process of struggle we may find ourselves in an unnatural season of winter.

The autumn season of perplexity may sometimes be the catalyst for some to embark on the task of church planting. When that is the case, we may be tempted to skip the winter of meditation, reflection and beholding and instead move right into a new spring of simplicity. This is understandable. When we make a life-changing decision during a period of deep perplexity we can be so relieved to find something new that we rush forward with little or no preparation.

This may help explain why some groups define themselves by what they’re against rather than what they’re for. We get frustrated with our experience and without pausing to reflect on what we’re being called TO, we simply react out of what we’re running FROM.

This is like trees that begin to bloom and bud in an unseasonably warm January. The hard freeze is still coming and when it does it can kill them. In this case, the natural progression of winter which should send plants into a dormant state actually serves to destroy the tree. Instead of natural season of rest it becomes an unnatural harbinger of death. Naked Spirituality is helpful in reminding us that following seasons of perplexity we need a season of beholding before moving forward.

I suspect that we could trace the cycle of McLaren’s metaphorical seasons through our progression through each of the quests he spoke of in A New Kind of Christianity. As we move from the quest for survival to security or from individuality to honesty there is likely going to be a move from simplicity to complexity to perplexity because it is precisely that season of perplexity to propels us further. The danger of skipping over the winter of beholding, in this macro view, remains a major threat. Before moving forward, we need time to reflect, process, heal...time to “be still and know.”

As we progress from season to season we don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater or set about reinventing the wheel. Its important to bring the lessons we learned previously with us into the new. It seems to me that there are two parallel temptations at this point.

On the one hand we may reject everything that had to do with the previous system - like organic church planters recognizing the previous short-comings of rigid, bottle-necking structures and then mistakenly labeling structure itself as the problem.

The other danger is that as we bring these things along, we must allow them to be replanted in the new season, in ways that are appropriate to the time in which we now dwell. If not, we will simply add new things to the old list of things and bring on a whole new season of perplexity and despair. We find ourselves trying to plant seeds, till the ground, pull the weeds and harvest the fruit all simultaneously (I’m afraid that I’m dangerously close to obliterating this metaphor...I think I have a spiritual gift for doing that).

An example of this mistake can be seen in congregations that grab the latest trend and plug it uncritically into their church culture. This can be true for things like the Purpose-Driven Life program as well as missional church “stuff.” Particularly for something like a missional mindset, it simply won’t work to treat it as something we work into our schedule or add on top of all the other programs. Missional represents a new paradigm or a new season, to borrow McLaren’s metaphor. As such we must take time to consider what lessons and practices from the previous season need to be contextually replanted and which ones will no longer function well in the new.

All in all, I think Naked Spirituality is one of McLaren’s better books, particularly if read in tandem with or following New Kind of Christianity. I didn't even cover the 12 words or spiritual practices that McLaren desribes for each of the seasons of faith - but I found them to be appropriate and useful for both individuals and communities.

These two books are not necessarily ones you just want to give to everyone to read on their own. They aren’t as quick and easy to read as some of his other works. However, I think that the contents of these two works could be very beneficial for a community to process through together, even in (or perhaps especially in) contexts where there is a wide diversity of familiarity and experience in the Christian faith.

Prayer for Tuesday

Tuesday - Gratitude for our Local Community

Father we thank you that you have seen fit to guide us to this place at this time. Teach us to joyfully reflect the incarnation of your Son as we seek to inhabit our neighborhood. We are grateful that in you we live and move and have our being and that you have seen fit to give that life expression in the midst of this neighborhood, this coffee shop, this office, this park, this school community.

We ask Lord that you will open our eyes to the expressions of your Kingdom that are being displayed in this place. Teach us to rejoice and be glad when we see the poor neighbor opening their home to others, when we see the single mother sacrifice much out of love for her children, when a city official takes a stance in defense of the powerless. God we are grateful that you are working in this place and we ask that you continue to give us opportunities to join you in your mission of reconciliation right here, right now.

Today, take a moment to notice and express gratitude to God for some example of the Kingdom working its way into your local community. Take a short prayer walk through your neighborhood, expressing gratitude to God for the people who dwell in those houses. Let those who have eyes to see, see.

Review of McLaren's Newest Books: Part 2 of 3

This is part 2 of 3 in a series reviewing two of Brian McLaren's books which 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.

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Life happens in cycles, but nothing is truly and totally repetitive. Seasons progress from one to the next each year in fairly predictable patterns, but never has the exact same season been experienced twice. Every day on the weather, meterologists (who I affectionately refer to as “guessologists”) gives us the day’s average, actual and record highs and lows - today isn’t the same as this day last year, and the good money is on it being somewhat different next year as well.

In Brian McLaren’s newest book, Naked Spirituality: A Life With God in 12 Simple Words (New York: Harper One, 2011), he speaks of four seasons of the life of faith. The spring of simplicity is marked by uncluttered dichotomies; this is right, that is wrong, this is up, that is down. Faith is a simple matter, being right is very important.

This gives way to the summer of complexity; obstacles and challenges come into view, but with a newfound sense of independence, we run headlong toward them. Faith is marked by a passion and zeal to enact change and a confidence that we will see the fruit of our struggles soon.

When struggles, disappointments and disillusionment begin to settle in, we know the autumn of perplexity is upon us. Dichotomies that used to seem so concrete, truths which seemed unassailable, postures which seemed so right begin to crumble and, like Job, we cry out, “When, oh Lord?... No!... Why, God?”

It is only by moving through these seasons that we enter the peaceful harmony of winter. We learn to listen to the deep silence of the snow-blanketed forest, and in it hear the majestic song of creation in response to the Creator. All around us creation is resting and we are invited to slow down and behold.

Of course, progressing through these seasons is not a one-time, linear event. Just as there are cool days in summer and strangely warm days, even weeks, in the midst of winter, so too will we have “unseasonable” periods in our life of faith. Likewise, we know that after winter comes spring - every year...unless you live in Texas and then you usually skip right to summer.

While I could appreciate the previous metaphor of the light spectrum (In New Kind of Christianity), this new image of seasons subtly addresses the danger of viewing people in “earlier” stages as inferior. It may be the case that you are in the summer season of perplexity while another person is clearly floating through the simplicity of spring...but this alone is no reason to view them as necessarily less mature. In keeping with (and perhaps straining) the metaphor, you may be in the summer of 1985 while they’re experiencing the spring of 2011.

This recalls the admonition for ubuntu faith to cease viewing the earlier stages as wrong or bad. I confess that I struggle with this task - and my conversations with many friends suggest that I am not alone. When I hear someone interviewed on the news, as I did recently, claiming that her child was shot in the leg and not the head because God loves her child and protected him, I immediately begin asking, “What about the children who have been shot in the head? Or those eighteen who died when the Tower of Siloam fell on them?” (Luke 13:4)

My natural response when Christians make statements that I feel are naive or immature is to fall back into those initial questions I mentioned in my previous post, “What do we have to say to anyone else if we can’t agree with each other?”

Perhaps my response should be to recognize that this may be the most appropriate way they can articulate life and faith from the where they currently dwell. There has to be room for these different perspectives even within our churches. Perhaps the expectation for everyone to be on “the same page” is inappropriate, given that each of us are likely experiencing various seasons of faith. That doesn’t mean that we don’t question and challenge each other; the questioning may be part of the process by which we move from one season into the next. Yet, there must be room for each of us to grow and mature as the Spirit moves within us.

The challenge then becomes cultivating an environment where each person is invited to pursue God faithfully with others who may be at drastically different points in the journey. Iron sharpens iron, but sometimes iron is also the hammer helping shape the nearly molten metal of another’s life. Of course, the hammer must remember that apart from the hand of the metal smith, it is a lifeless tool.

Perhaps this seems like an elementary observation - and I’ll grant that may very well be the case. However, if it is then I contend that on the whole, Christians in the West are functioning as preschoolers.

In the final edition of this series of posts, I'll say a few more things about Naked Spirituality and comment on how the books work well together.

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.