I'm back...just not here

To my loyal readers (all 11 of you) I'm back, but have moved this blog to; www.acompanyoffriends.wordpress.com. Not much new there yet, but I've been undergoing some major changes personally these past few months and felt it was a good time to make a fresh start in bolgdom. My church-planting venture in Vancouver has ended; all of the families have left to pursue ministry elsewhere and while there is sadness in all this, the experience has taught me much about leadership, vision and mission.

Just so you don't worry, I'm still committed to a vision of "church" as a verb; a lifestyle not confined by prescribed locations, events and programs. I'm indebted to conventional church for much of what is good in me; the place I've come from was, in most meaningful ways, positive and beautiful. I hope (and I'll leave it to all of you to verify this) that I've put to rest my cynicism and hostility towards conventional church. We've all got more important things to do than complain! And I'm certain that the road God has me on is new and full of risk, adventure and reward.

You've all be so positive and encouraging and I wanted to let you know that I treasure that. Your words have been both kind and wise. Thank you.

And I invite you to continue this journey with me. Hope to hear from you soon.

Shalom,
tp

Out wandering...see you next year.

Who cares?

From my journal more than two years ago...seems relevant.

In all honesty, I am a profoundly needy person. I hate even the sound of that confession, but it's true. Sometimes I muster the courage to stop and reflect on who I am and where I'm at in life and the things I discover surprise me.

I need…to be right. I need to look good. I need to achieve success. I need to know people think I'm important. I need to be forgiven, I need to love. I need to eat, sleep, and exercise. I need a titanium mountain bike. I need a custom chopper. I need a vacation. I need to paint my house. I need to impress. I need to rescue others. I need to say smart things, do good things, and conceal the bad things I've already done. I need. I need. I need…

And my needs wear me out.

I'm so tired. My days are such a blur. My nights are filled with fitful sleep. I have plans and dreams and I'm working hard to see them fulfilled. I'm doing all that while living in a family that (I fear) is at times, as tired as I am. And never mind my plans and dreams. What about the relentless barrage of unpredicted, ill-timed and overwhelming crises that come our way? Relatives die, bills go unpaid, cars break down, kids break limbs! I don't know how to make sense of it all!

I am so confused.

And my confusion is deep and troubling. What do I do? Where do I go? Whom do I trust? These and so many other questions swirl around in my soul like an emotional tornado uprooting all my assumptions, upending all the things I thought were reliable and tossing them across the landscape of my heart. So often, I sit in a numb kind of despair; like the people you see on TV after a storm has destroyed their neighborhood. I sit in silence and confusion. I need to get up and do something but the "something" is a mystery and the energy to "get up" is completely gone.

And it scares me.

I'm afraid. My weariness and confusion lead to a fear that ranges from mild discomfort to a raging panic. I fear failure. I'm afraid of rejection. I'm scared to trust. I hide from intimacy. My wife feels my fear and my children bear the brunt of it. My emotional defense systems are armed with sophisticated cloaking devices that make it almost impossible for anyone to detect that I am scared to death. One such devise is anger. It's highly effective at hiding the fears that plague me. You see people tend to stay away from stern and brooding men; anger transmits a signal that says "warning, step away from the daddy!" The resulting isolation makes it unnecessary to admit - much less deal with the fear inside me that is expressed in anger.

But this leads me to stray.

With clock-like precision, anger leads to a desire to escape. Unchecked, anger seems to draw me towards self-destruction. I can't tell you how many people I have watched fall into the current of self-destructive, self-defeating and self-abusive behavior. I'm tempted to write their stories because that means I won't have to write mine. But my conscience won't let me do that. My story is simple: unmet needs drive a kind of spiritual exhaustion that generates confusion which leads to fear which triggers a well-practiced habit of escapism. It comes in various flavors like sexual temptation, workaholism, selfish pursuit of hobbies, exercise, disobedience and outright rebellion. This is not necessarily a linear sequence, but more like the view from the top of a moral dumpster.

And then Shame comes to visit.

Once I've taken the plunge into that dumpster, my loneliness ends; at least for a moment. But not in the way anyone would hope or expect. Soon shame is at my side. He is both hideous and brilliant. Hideous for his ability to recall every past failure and mistake and brilliant for his skill and timing in the way he reminds me of those things. Shame is my intimate enemy. He knows where the wounds lie and he is more than willing to rub salt in them. He is the one who makes me believe that most damning lies; "you are worthless, you have no value, no purpose… and no one cares!"

Soon I am all alone.

In fatigue and despair I nod my head in agreement. I AM alone. And the experience is excruciating. And the effect hammers away at the core of my being.

Insecurity haunts me.

It's hard enough at this point to contend with the immediate pain much less think of eternity. Will I always swim in this current of insecurity? Let's face it, my failures are just that...MINE. And the ugly truth is that I can't escape from me. Peter Pan tried to catch his shadow. I'd like to sever mine! And the brilliant light of the truth of God only makes the shadow that much clearer.

Will I ever be free?

Will there ever be rest.

Will I ever be truly loved?

Does anyone care?

The Lord is my shepherd. I have everything I need." (Ps. 23)

Yes. Yes. Yes..and YES!!!

What childcare means when you're in your mid fourties

My daughter was nearby last week because her team had a volleyball tournament. She's a junior in college and her playing days are coming to an end. Naturally we wanted to see her, but it meant a two-and-a-half hour drive on a dark, rainy night. The freeway was packed with cars and on more than one occasion we narrowly avoided an accident. My wife and I were both tired, but we missed our baby, so we drove on.

We hurried just a bit more than usual because the assistant coach called in a panic; she's the mother of a beautiful two- year old boy and her usual baby sitter couldn't make it to the game. She asked if we would mind holding Noah. Not having sons, I was more than happy to babysit; its more fun to play with boys and then give them back than it is to actually raise them...so I'm told!

We got to the game late and picked up Noah from his dad (who's also a coach). After the initial tears, the little guy settled down in my wife's lap and we watched the rest of the match; Mom, dad and Noah. I pretended to be ok with my wife holding him, but secretly, I couldn't wait for my turn. He's a beautiful child with blue eyes and a moppy head of blond hair. When the match ended I took Noah from my wife expecting him to fuss, but he just laid his head on my shoulder and went to sleep. We made our way to the floor to find mom and dad. While we waited, I sat in the bleachers and began to play with Noah who woke up during the postgame commotion.

He began to giggle and the sound of his laughter had the strangest effect on me. I was exhausted from the drive and dreading the return trip (it was still raining; November in Oregon!) but hearing the innocent laugh of a child stirred my soul. As I drove home, I kept thinking about Noah's smile and the sound of his voice. It occurs to me that while there is so much to worry about these days, so much to fear, so much to fret over; the pure simplicity of a little boy's boundless joy and wonder might be a sign that all is not lost. Noah reminded me of why the little ones meant so much to Jesus. Their capacity to freely give and receive love made them the perfect vessels for communicating His message.

My daughter's team lost the match and she hardly got to play, but in a weird, wonderful way Noah made the trip worthwhile.

Go Cougs!

Tentmaking

I haven't done this before, but I'm doing it now.

If you would be so kind, I would like to ask you to read the following and give me your thoughts. Whether you consider yourself an advocate or opponent of these ideas, I would appreciate your wisdom.

Here goes...

Scripture says more about "“being"” the church than it does about "going to church."” As sincere followers of Jesus, our concern should be the active, intentional, daily engagement with the Holy Spirit in a way of life that is marked by humility, obedience, love and power. These are marks of a true disciple or follower of Jesus. The problem with simply "going" to church is that it tends to reduce the practice of the Christian life to a scheduled event that happens for a couple of hours every Sunday; church attendance gets confused with real adherence to the teachings and demands of Jesus.

And it’s getting worse.

Consider some statistics from a recent report;
1. Less than 20% of Americans regularly attend church; half of what the pollsters report.
2. American church attendance is steadily declining.
3. In only one state is church growth outpacing its population growth.
4. The increase in churches is only 1/4 of what's needed to keep up with population growth.
5. In 2050, the percentage of the U.S. population attending church will be almost half of what it was in 1990.
(Outreach Magazine May/June 2006)

People from many corners of the American church world are wringing their hands and decrying the end of church as we know it. Perhaps they should, but maybe this is good news. Maybe the decline of church-as-usual is an indication of God doing something entirely new and different right under our noses. If so, it would call for more than one new kind of ministry paradigm. Maybe we'’re at that point as a culture where, once again, form can more faithfully follow function. Maybe we can regain a solid, Biblical vision of the Kingdom and in response, create new ways of (as one author calls it,) "“churching."” This will require a radical re-thinking of leadership.

Given all this, it begs the question; is a caste of professionally trained and educated clergy is the best source from which to draw this new leadership? It seems the movement these days is from highly centralized, attractional events (we call them church services) towards smaller, more fluid, home/office-based initiatives.

I believe that these new initiatives will best be led by men and women who have the freedom to teach, shepherd and direct others without the burden of building and sustaining extensive, demanding and increasingly ineffective conventional church structures. Furthermore, their leadership could be enhanced if they could avoid total financial dependence on the churches in which they lead. If they could, like the Apostle Paul, make money by their own hands, three very important things would result: (1) Financial resources could be directed to other, more missional needs. (2) Leaders would be free of the pressure to compromise for fear of offending the ones paying his salary.” (3) In the absence of a co-dependent culture where everyone defers to the professional pastor to perform all the spiritual work, the gifts of more people would pressed into use.

On becoming and making disciples...part 2

The previous post came perilously close to obsessive focus on what's wrong with the church. Let me try to shift our eyes toward some more positive thinking.

When Jesus told us to go make disciples, he immediately followed that command with a series of statements that reveal the complexity and holistic nature of what that process involves. If you break it down phrase by phrase, several things slowly (at first for me anyway) become clearer; kind of like a long, slow gaze upon the facets of a polished gemstone.

Jesus said "go" make disciples; it's a command that implies intentionality.

The scope of this command is global; "all nations" are the focus. Not just people like me!

"baptizing them in the name of the Father...Son...Holy Spirit." the idea here includes, but is not limited to dunking. New insight for me here; to baptize in the metaphorical sense means to immerse. One of the most effective ways to learn a foreign language is called "Immersion;" where all that the person hears is, say, Spanish for an extended period of time. Doing so allows the student's ears to adjust to the tempo, sound and inflection of the language. Jesus commands us to immerse ourselves in a way of existence shaped by the very Trinity itself! We're to dive into a way of life that is patterned after the same love and power experienced by the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit; that's what is meant by "in the name of..." As we order our lives around the same things that Jesus did, our ears (in a spiritual sense) get used to "hearing" God's voice.

"...teaching them to obey..." with an ever increasing capacity to "hear" God comes the responsibility to actually DO what He's telling us. When I played football in college we had a constant parade of freakish, musclebound guys who would show up on campus wanting to tryout for the team. They were huge, strong and mean, but most never made the cut because, while they had built up enormous muscle mass (some, I'm sure with the help of pharmaceutical substances of a dubious nature!) they lacked core physical and mental strength.

They looked like Tarzan and played like Jane. Learning without obedience produces the same kind of Christian.

And notice, Jesus doesn't say "teach them to enjoy creative sermons,"

or "teach them to be titilated by sophisticated theological discussions,"

or "teach them to evaluate the presentation like a spiritual food critic."

He said "teach them to obey;" nothing less is acceptable.

"...and surely I am with you..." its both a shot of encouragement and a hint of warning. In Him is the power to learn, to obey, to become a disciple. But with that comes a sobering thought; He is watching, expecting, insisting that we actually do it.

On becoming and making disciples...part 1

Jesus told us to "go and make disciples..." Its that simple.

Or is it?

Things have become confusing these days; so much heady chatter about the emergent, or missional church (take your pick) that we've lost sight of the Prime Directive given to us at the end of Matthew's Gospel. Don't get me wrong, much of the conversation regarding church in the 21st Century is worthwhile and necessary, but only insofar as it enables us to do a better job at becoming and making disciples.

Dallas Willard says, "...some might be shocked to hear that what the 'church' - the disciples gathered - really needs is not more people, more money, better buildings or programs, more education, or more prestige. Christ's gathered people, the church, has always been at its best when it had little or none of these. All it needs to fulfill Christ's purposes on earth is the quality of life that He makes real in the life of His disicples."

My fear (somebody tell me if I'm alone here!) is that most of the energy being spent in trying to make church relevant to our culture is simply a disguised attempt to hold on to (or more likely, regain) a position of power and influence. What is described as "reaching our world" may be little more than a grab for power and control. The American church spends countless millions of dollars on buildings, technology and staffing in order to produce creative, dynamic presentations (we call them church "services,") but I wonder, just who is being served; Jesus or the institution?

I know it sounds harsh.

I mean to be.

But I'm pointing the finger at my self here because I'm as much to blame for this as anyone else. Over the years, I've been responsible for spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on these things (in the form of salary, equipment and staffing) and while I did it with the best of intentions, I failed to spend the same amount of time, energy and resources on the practical, daily and mundane job of making disciples.

Again, Dallas Willard speaks with the voice of a prophet; "It is a tragic error to think that Jesus was telling us, as he left, to start churches as that is understood today."

Church is a means-to-an-end.

That end is millions of little jesus people running around thinking and acting like their Master. If church as we know it were actually doing this, there would be much less debate about it's validity and influence in our world. And how much better would things be?