Crossing the Threshold

I saw God today...

2010-08-24T14:18:00.002-04:00

I saw God today…

Your mission, should you decide to accept it… What t.v. show or movie? If you don’t know then I’m too old. Mission Impossible, kids. The word mission has always been intriguing to me. When I think of the word it reminds me of adventure, a purpose, or goal to achieve. Sometimes it is mysterious and top secret like in espionage films or Navy Seal operations. Many companies have what are called mission statements. A statement to remind folks of what they are doing and to always keep focused on that. When checking out Merriam-Webster.com here is a quick paste of part of what I found:

Definition of MISSION

1. obsolete : the act or an instance of sending : a ministry commissioned by a religious organization to propagate its faith or carry on humanitarian work b : assignment to or work in a field of missionary enterprise c (1) : a mission establishment (2) : a local church or parish dependent on a larger religious organization for direction or financial support d plural : organized missionary work e : a course of sermons and services given to convert the unchurched or quicken Christian faith

? Sort of confused by this online version, I grabbed my old Webster’s dictionary from 1970 and it states:

1. A sending out or being sent out to perform a special duty.

2. A) a group of missionaries.

B) it’s headquarters.

3. A diplomatic delegation.

4. The special duty on which one is sent.

5. The special task for which one seems destined in life; calling ( J )

Still confused? No worries. Your mission should you decide to accept it: The Great Commission.

11 disciples go to a mountain in Galilee, where they were told to go. Jesus then tells them and you:

“All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I will be with you always, to the very end of the age.” Matthew 28 : 18-20

Threshold church. A missional church. A place of worship and prayer in Toledo, Ohio. A church recently placed by God on the University of Toledo campus, to make disciples. To hear of this story of how we got here is nothing short of a miracle. What is really exciting now is going back to the mission aspect. We know now what our mission is. We know now what our mission field is. Now it is time to go out and let God work through us to do his will. Exciting times are in front of us. An adventurous time. A roller coaster? Clink.. Clink.. A God adventure is the best and only ride, especially one filled with faith. (Heb 11:1) One that we are ready to go on. Ready to hop on?

After having a fantastic lunch and inspirational conversation with PT at Ferdos, I felt led to do something. With today being the first day of classes at the University, I wanted to go walk and pray on our new mission field. My sole purpose was to just walk and talk with God. To walk around campus, silently pray “I love you. God Bless you,” to the students I walked past. And also, re familiarize myself with campus, buildings and where things are. As I started my walk, it started bringing back many memories from when I was a student there. Almost 20 years ago. YIKES!

The sounds of flip flops and laughter filled the air on this warm but breezy August Monday. It was funny while walking past kids. Many were talking or texting on cell phones. Some you could tell were excited to be back living life as a student while heading to their next new class. You could also spot the nervous freshman a mile a way. Afraid to make eye contact and looking straight at the ground. Another dude wore baggy jeans and a Metallica t-shirt. His face showed all seriousness. I wondered if he was in ROTC. I told him silently to “Rock on, God Bless you brother.” As I walked further in to campus, I started to feel a peace. Something just felt right. I headed through campus, found the student union, the library and various buildings. I then walked across the bridge towards the athletic complex and found the outdoor track. Here I walked a mile and came to a realization that Threshold is at the start of a new adventure. We have been given our mission. I then prayed that we do His will on this campus and then said the Lord’s prayer. After that I just tried to be quiet and enjoy the sun popping through the clouds. On my way back into campus is when it happened. I saw God today.

The next half an hour was intense. I guess in my own ignorance I had just thought everyone around me were atheist kids and organizations. Wondering and praying HOW we are going to connect with these students. According to Barna research, 18-25-year olds are the least likely age group to attend church. Another piece of research shows, The national average of Christians on university campuses is less than 5 percent. You read quotes like this and hear people say them and in a weird way you already feel defeated. It feels like we have already lost the fight. Wrong! What happened to me next changed my attitude and approach to these kids. God is everywhere. He is all over the University. I just had to open my eyes. The first was getting out of my comfort zone of just walking and to start talking. To connect with some people. Then a feeling of peace overcame me again and then it felt like a monkey was soon to jump off my back.

While walking back to the campus I glanced over to the Glass Bowl. Crews were working on the scoreboard and I was hoping that the team was going to be good this year. I then crossed the street and walked up to information booth. Set up on the first day of classes to help guide students and give out information. Deep down I was just hoping to score a football schedule but was given a directory of student organizations magazine, a student day runner and a pen. I thanked the guy and opened up the day runner. It listed the academic calendar, important numbers, and the Rocket football schedule. Kewl. I then walked back across the bridge and saw another table set up. It was quite simple. A stack of index cards, pieces of candy and two dudes standing there smiling.

“What’s up fellas?”, I asked. “ Would you like to fill out one of our cards?” I picked up a card and read the top: 60 Second Spiritual Perspective Questionnaire. I chuckeld and then had a great five minute conversation with these impressive young warriors. They were with an organization called Campus Crusade for Christ. I got their contact info and shared with them Threshold. If they were in need of a house of prayer or worship that our doors are open and all are welcome. I walked away feeling that peace again. Knowing that we as a body of Christ are going to partner and work with them in the near future. I headed into the main campus and found a bench. Sitting underneath the shade of a small tree I took a glance around the buildings, feeling once again like a college kid. I then glanced to my left hand and opened my student organization magazine. I opened it right to a page that sort of took my breath away. What I was staring at was almost shocking.

RELIGIOUS ORGANIZATIONS. Holy Toledo. I then counted over 24 different organizations. 22 of them dealing with Christ. I then glanced up into the quad. Watching all of the students. It hit me that we are all God’s children. Christians are everywhere. We are all brothers and sisters. We can all work together to fulfill the mission. I then said a prayer of thanks. Thanks for allowing me to see what I didn’t know. All I had to do was open my eyes and more importantly my heart.

As I continued my walk back to Threshold something caught my eye. I was on the corner of Campus road and Scott Hall. Looking down on the steps of the hall, I saw some chalk art. At this moment, I nervously laughed and looked at the sky. “Ok, I get it,” I told the Lord. Looking down on the steps in different colors of chalk it read: GOD IS LOVE.

As I turned right onto Campus road I then heard something loud. It startled me at first but then is was music to me ears, literally. It was just a car coming up from behind me. The stereo was beyond loud. I laughed out loud, thinking I used to do the same thing when I got done from a busy day of classes. I rolled my windows down and then cranked the stereo on 11. As the car passed me I quickly looked at the student. I could not see him but could hear the music. It was a song called Monster. A hit from one the biggest Christian hard rock bands of our time, Skillet. “Rock on. God Bless you brother.”

If you have read this far, I thank you. I have one request for you. If you are member of Threshold, a supporter of Threshold, or just finding out about Threshold, please pray. That is it. Pray for our new mission field. Every person on our campus. The University President, faculty, staff and of course all of the students. Our new mission field has over 20,000+ people. God has put us here for a reason. Pretty awesome yet very humbling to say the least. As we are ready to enter into this exciting new season, please join us in this mission. That His will be done. YOU can be with us. This is going to be an amazing adventure. One that is part of a gigantic God movement happening all over the world. Now is the time. You don’t want to miss this revival. Exciting times are happening now.

From Jaeson Ma’s exciting book , The Blue Print, I will close with this: “Dr. Bill Bright, founder of Campus Crusade for Christ, always said, Win the campus today and change the world tomorrow! He understood that reaching college students for Christ is the key to transforming society. His vision to change the campus in order to reach the world has impacted countless millions with the gospel. We must establish God’s kingdom, His Church, on every college and university campus in this generation because this is where reformation begins. The campus is the greatest mission field in our world today.”

Your mission should you choose to accept it..

2010-06-12T13:44:00.000-04:00

Searching for Kairos

2010-06-07T02:58:00.003-04:00

Morn' mates. Wow, what a weekend we just had. We have been going non stop and I have had no time to blog if anyone is checking. I have been journaling and taking notes (already 20 pages) and have learned so much already and the convention starts today. I just want to say real quick that Threshold is doing a great job. We ARE so on track and have the working dna of this movement. Thank God we are an organic church. Trust me when I say the word movement. It is happening and going explode all over the world. How exciting that we are part of this amazing history of the church.

Kent Hunter said it might take up to 6months to a year, maybe longer to process everything we are seeing and doing. I think there is some truth in that. Since, I am so pressed for time right now, just want u to know we are seeing amazing things. These folks are the true living body, meaning they are living their walk on a daily basis as disciple. Not just on Sun. or once a month in a cluster (callout) I feel we have much more to do in this area. We are not lazy Americans. We just have to simply start just living more for Jesus and then everything else will fall in place. Sorry if that sounds confusing. On a quick side note, it is true about teeth. The would enjoy that dry english humour. lol.

Couple quick things. The are living in a biblical community. They really and truly go out and establish relationships with the world. They LIVE while all doing lifeshapes and being in discipleship programs. The culture has been fun and interesting. The people of England are real nice are going crazy in regards to the world cup. The food is been funny. I have tried to be adventurous and try new things. Bangers and Mash anyone? Bajed beans for breakfast? Also tried Marmade. uggh You put it on toast. Nasty. Yesterday was awesome. Went to 3 worship services. That made a huge impact on us and to sum up in one word: AUTHENTIC. So real. We went to a cluster event too. Have to hop in shower. More to come. Thanks for prayer and talk soon. Cheers, j and s

2010-06-02T13:31:00.002-04:00

Getting ready to fly across the pond. I will do my best to blog if time allows. We are heading to St. Thomas church in Sheffield, UK. Only 300 people from around the world are invited to attend what is called pilgrimage week. After looking up the word pilgrimage in Websters it states- a journey made by a pilgrim, esp. to a holy place. That made the hair on my arms stand up. My center of focus upon arriving is to empty my cup and absorb and learn everything the Holy Spirit will allow me to. I am so interested in how this church started and what amazing things they are doing. Specifically in the area of what scripture this ministry is based on. Romans 12, 1 Corinthians 12, and Ephesians 4. I want to learn and experience how they use these different gifts for a biblical basis for ministry in person. Also, super excited to learn about Form, see their clusters (callouts), and experience authentic worship and hopefully some prophecy. I hope to meet Mike Breen, have a few pints in a real pub, witness the country side and all the history of the country, especially the churches and further my study on Life Shapes. Anyhoo, gotta run. Thank you to all who supported Sam and I. We love you and thank you. Talk to you soon and please keep us in prayer. Peace, j

Friday’s Walk

2010-05-24T15:33:00.001-04:00

by Josh Humberger

On Friday April 2^nd, 2010 we glorified Jesus. I did this with an amazing team of people, which started with a very simple idea. An idea over two years in the making. An idea that I knew I had to try and live out, but was not sure how or when to do it. After attending STORY Chicago last year, this idea was confirmed. So, after hours of thinking and praying about this simple idea, I told a few people about it. The reaction was mixed. Here is what I said: "On Good Friday I am going to dress as Jesus and carry a cross in three major downtown cities. By doing this, people will see this and they will think of Jesus and that it is Good Friday. Then they will think of their relationship or lack of one with Him and think of what He did for us" Period.

Although a simple idea or plan of action, it took a tremendous amount of time and preparation to do this. For starters, not getting a hair cut. I wanted to look as best and authentic as I could. So for 15 months I let the hair ride. A big thanks to my wife for her patience in this matter. Next, was getting in shape. It was going to be a physically grueling day to pull this off. To get in shape and get strong enough, I started and completed an extreme physical fitness program called P90X. 6 days a week for 12 weeks. The beginning was rough but I stuck it out and it worked. Towards the end, I was able to do over 40 pull ups in a workout. Next, came all the planning of my routes and what cities. Location scouting. Putting together a team that would be with me. Growing a beard, finding a costume. Going on 5 mile walks in the park with weights. Daily bible study. Watching and studying Jesus films. Going to the tanning booth. Mapping out and driving the routes and having the closest hospitals marked. Designing and building an authentic 8 ft cross. Prayer, then more prayer. Catering, transportation, the list goes on and on and then came the attacks…

Two week prior to the walk, crazy things started to happen. Scary things. During this time I kept going to scripture. I kept going to 3 key verses. Reading and meditating on them over and over. Ephesians 6:13 Joshua 1:9 and Hebrews 11:1. I can truly say that it felt like many times, something was trying to stop me. For example, two weeks before the big day I had a freak accident. I heard something pop in my lower back. For over two days, if I even lifted a coffee mug, I would catch my breath. The week of the walk I awoke in the middle of the night after a terrifying nightmare, in which I was attacked and stabbed in my leg. I laid there on a sidewalk and watched myself die. I had a few people say to my face that "I could get shot and die doing this." I had people willing to help with this project then back away. My jeep broke down and I had no wheels to get things done three days before Friday. So many things were coming at me that at times I really doubted if I was going to pull this off.

Two years of thinking and planning, came down to one day. Was it going to be raining and 34 degrees? Were any of us going to get sick that week? Was I going to get arrested? If I got attacked will the team remain in safety? Will I martyr myself doing this? I was filled with so much anxiety the week of, that I had some serious trouble sleeping. I would just lay there in bed and be thinking about that cross. In building it with my dad, I wanted it to really look big and real. After it was completed and stained, I had one reoccurring thought. This thing is HEAVY. Was I really going to be able to drag it as far as I wanted to. Crazy questions mixed with anxious fear. Deep down though, I found strength. It was the reason I was doing this. JESUS

Good Friday Morning I awoke at 5 a.m. My first thought was, "Well. Here we are. Today is the day. Tomorrow morning, if I am still here, I will never have to feel this much anticipation ever again." As the team arrived, we had breakfast and prayer. We reviewed and double checked everything. Loaded the truck and then headed to the east side of downtown Toledo. Although the butterflies were dancing, I was really more excited and just ready to GO OUT and do this. I will state this now. If I would have tried to do this alone, it would not have happened. Thank you to my team: Sam, George, Tom, Justin, and Mike, and then all of the love and support of my family, friends and relatives and my church Threshold. THANK YOU for the prayer support. I could truly feel you with me out there. It was amazing. And what happened on this day was one of the most exciting, adventurous, and fulfilling days I have ever had in my life as a Christ follower. Thank you all.

Toledo -Detroit - Cleveland. 3 Cities in 1 day. The 40 pound cross was carried over 5 miles. When the day was finished we had traveled over 410 miles and completed it in about 15 hours. What happened was truly amazing. First off, nothing bad happened. It turned into a day of prayer, worship, and a very positive experience. For us and for those who saw this. I could write for hours on all the different life experiences but I will share just a couple highlights of each town.

Toledo: Our hometown. Television crews and the Toledo Blade followed us the whole 2 mile route. It was beyond exciting walking across the Cherry St Bridge while looking at downtown Toledo as the sun rose upon the buildings. Although it was not really busy this time of the morning, I had plenty of cars driving by honking their horns at me. I had one lady who just had to talk to me and say "God Bless you for doing this." It was also really neat walking across 5/3^rd Field and through downtown and it's historic buildings. I also saw the impact it was having as I made eye contact with folks. We ended by doing a lap around the Lucas County Court House. At the conclusion of this walk I stopped at the 10 Commandments statue. I then did something that no one noticed. I laid the cross down in front and across it. We then went into St. Paul's church across the street to rest and pray. While inside, I gave my mom a quick call to update her and tell her everything was alright. She said my dad went to the park and went for a walk and to pray at the exact time I was walking. I heard that and started bawling.

We then hopped on 75N to Detroit Rock City. I was feeling super happy and wanted to jam some heavy music. I was getting more pumped up because I knew that I was going to physically be able to drag that cross. My only issue was the top of my shoulders. They were getting tender and sore. One thing I never prepared for or expected was that on the side walk, every five feet is a gap. Every time the bottom of the cross hit a gap it dug down on my shoulder. I knew that I was going to be in some pain but I also knew that what I felt wasn't .00005% of what He went through for us.

Detroit: The city I was most concerned about for obvious reasons. The Lord gave us a really nice and warm day. The temperature during this time really started to climb around 11:00a.m. A big highlight is the visual of this walk. We went to a very popular blvd. The starting spot was Hockey Town and then we began the walk going past Comerica Park (go Tiga's) and into downtown. It was pretty busy with street traffic and I also knew there had to be thousands looking out the windows of their buildings while at work. In the beginning of this walk I received a few negative looks and vibes. One guy yelled at me that I looked liked Eddie Vedder from the band Pearl Jam. Right after that guy, I had a man who was hunched over walk in front of me. Believe me or not but his face changed/morphed into something beyond scary or evil. If you have seen the Passion, then you may remember the scene with Judas and the kids and their faces morphing. That is what I saw and all I will say about this. As we got about half way, I felt someone on my back while stopped at a traffic light. He was very close to me and I wasn't sure what was going to happen. Then he starts yelling. He starts street preaching while I start walking. At first I was like "oh nooo," but then what I was hearing him yell at the top of his lungs I could not dispute. He was preaching the word and attracting a ton of people to look at me. After a little while longer we stopped again at a light. He was staring at me so intently. So I reached out and gave him a hug and said "God bless you brother." He thought I WAS Jesus. He shared with me his feelings on the End of Days and that he thought Jesus really had come back. We continued for another mile to the walks conclusion with him preaching and me carrying that cross. A few days before, I was ripping on street preachers and the negative effect they have on people, usually because of the condemnation in their message, but this brother was different. I felt safe with him on my side. It was like I had a brother, a warrior if you will with me. It was an amazing experience and when we got done he shared a Power Ade with us and talked. Very kewl.

After Detroit, we hopped back down to the Buckeye state and headed east. I called my sister and she said that it was already on the noon news. 2 down 1 to go. Cleveland was next. While on the turnpike we stopped at a rest area and had a picnic. It was really starting to get warm as temps climbed into the 80's. Once we got to downtown Cleveland we drove our route and then parked behind Browns stadium. Although the team didn't know, I was not feeling hot. I think it was the warm weather and I was just mentally exhausted. All of that changed though once we started this walk. The city had an amazing energy. It was packed with people and while walking here I knew we were having a big impact. I would see business men walk pass and not look me in the eye. Other folks were taking my picture or shooting video from their phone and smiling. I would have some stopping their cars and staring. Some people were like a deer in head lights and staring with disbelief and yet others did not care. We ended this walk by walking down to Lake Erie and the Rock and Roll hall of Fame with the final stop being at Browns stadium. I saw a car do a u turn and then pull up to me. I looked over and it was an Asian couple. I said "God Bless you" and then he said with a nervous and shaky voice, "Ah.. are you.. hot?" He was so nervous in wanting to just speak to me that this was all he could spit out. Again, I really think they thought I was Jesus. I told him I was warm and to have a happy Easter. With a couple hundred yards left to the stadium I was tired and drained. I just stopped. I felt overwhelmed by emotion. I didn't want this to end. I wanted to walk more and go to more cities. I was sad it was over. I then got up to the stadium and set the cross down and said a quick prayer "that people's hearts be touched by what they saw and that they think of you Jesus. Thank you for what you did for us 2000 years ago. In your name, amen."

We then went out for a celebration meal. We found Great Lakes Brewery and had a couple cold beverages and great food. George and I both ordered a burger served on a hot pretzel bun. On the top of both buns was a cross. What a day. There are so many more stories to share and stories that I have heard that have been mind blowing. We were put on the front page of the Toledo Blade, covered all weekend on all three t.v. news station broadcasts, and aired also on a Cleveland station. 10's of 1000's of people saw this. This is not to toot my own horn. This was not about me. This was about Jesus and what we did with a simple idea. I am calling this visual evangelism. We took the visual of Jesus and without even talking made people think of Him. A friend of mine who works at a hospital said that she saw a lady running an AA group and the leader took out a copy of the Blade and asked the group to meditate on the picture. Another woman was having a rough week. On her way to work she was praying and asked Jesus for a sign. Minutes later she saw me and the cross on the bridge. She started crying. What happened next was incredible. She went into work, sharing with people with what she saw. This lady worked with my wife. We then took her out to eat the next week. For over three hours in BW3's we ate wings and talked about Jesus, church, and how screwed up religion is. So many people letting us know that they were touched by this. All praise and glory goes to HIM.

In closing, thank you for reading this. Tom asked me to write an update on Friday's Walk for the May newsletter. Just a paragraph. Sorry this turned into a blog. If you have read this far, thank you. What I am really excited about with this project is that it has been documented. I am currently working on making this into a documentary film and I am excited to announce I have an awesome Los Angeles film maker and company on board to help me edit and share this story. I hope that it will inspire folks to LIVE THEIR FAITH and show that when Jesus is 1^st place in your heart, that anything is possible. My goal is to have this completed and have a premier on Good Friday 2011. Please pray for this project. Thank you.

May you go out into the world and take your idea and make it a better place. It may be a difficult thing to pull off but with the spirit of adventure, especially with Jesus, it will be a journey you can't even imagine. "Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone wishes to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me." Matthew 16:24.

Peace,

josh

Prayer for Pioneering Ministry

2010-02-26T11:42:00.005-05:00

We need disciples, we need churches that will dare to risk their very existence for the advancement of the Kingdom of God and the Good News of Jesus Christ. Join me in praying this prayer (Thanks to Brian Anderson for sharing it).

"Disturb us, Lord, when we are too well pleased with ourselves, when our dreams have come true because we have dreamed too little, when we arrive safely because we sailed too close to the shore. Disturb us, Lord, when with the abundance of things we possess we have lost our thirst for the waters of life; having fallen in love with life, we have ceased to dream of eternity and in our efforts to build a new earth, we have allowed our vision of the new Heaven to dim. Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly , to venture on wider seas where storms will show your mastery; where losing sight of land, we shall find the stars. We ask You to push back the horizons of our hopes; and to push into the future in strength, courage, hope, and love." Attributed to Sir Francis Drake 1577

Our moment in history

2010-02-24T15:10:00.001-05:00

So what makes this current age so special within Church history? I ask this question, because many seem to indicate or outright say that we live in epochal times. Some believe that this age is unlike others before it in the history of the Church. While there may always be some truth to such a statement, I am reticent to make such a proclamation myself. Why? I think there is always a temptation to be somewhat self-aggrandizing when considering our place in history. This is particularly true if you happen to find yourself a participant in a new movement within the Church.

Currently, I am pastor of a new church plant utilizing a model of ministry that focuses on discipleship and the development of missional communities. A lot of the latest buzz words seem to pertain to our ministry—emerging (not so new), organic, missional. I'm sure I'm forgetting some, but they seem to be the biggies. Let me say, I am in love with this ministry that God has called me to. I am passionate about the vision and the importance of missional models of ministry to reach an increasingly secular society. This is change. Big change. NEEDED change within the Church. We have for too long sequestered ourselves behind the walls of buildings and legalistic, man-made categories of belonging. The Church needs to break free from its mausoleums of dead mortar and membership and engage a world in desperate need of the Gospel.

However, I do not believe this is THE moment in history. I do believe this is a moment in history and, more importantly, OUR moment in history. This is the moment, the time, the Kairos of the Kingdom that God has entrusted to us. Will we, the Church, be obedient and allow the Holy Spirit to work through us what God will? Will we take our part in God's ongoing revival, His ongoing plan of redemption, of death and rebirth? To paraphrase Jesus (always a dangerous thing, I know, but entertain me), "Do not worry about what they will think of us tomorrow. They'll have enough to think about." Instead, "Seek first his Kingdom and his righteousness." I'm pretty sure that last part is a direct quote.

Missional Communities

2010-02-22T14:25:00.002-05:00

Threshold Church was planted in April 2009 with a missional model of ministry utilizing "clusters" or what we call "Call-outs". Call-outs are mid-sized missional communities whose purpose is focused outward. They are the front lines of evangelism in our church. Planting a church with this model was the result of much prayer and much preparation by the Holy Spirit, that paralleled a trip to St. Thomas Church in Sheffield, UK almost three years ago.

More and more people are realizing the value and necessity of this or a similar model of ministry. About a year ago, Geoff Surratt of Seacoast Church in South Carolina heard about missional communities while in Europe. Now, in a blog entitled "Why small groups don't work" you can read his thoughts on what I believe to be one of the key components to revival in the U. S.

Read Geoff's thoughts here: Why small groups don't work, part 5

You never know where God will show up

2009-12-21T17:32:00.000-05:00

I found this completely awe inspiring and wanted to share it in as many ways as I can. Another example of how God's Kingdom breaks through into our lives in the most unexpected places and ways.

Ecclesia vs Church Part 2: The historical roots of the Ecclesia

2009-10-20T15:43:00.004-04:00

Read part 1: Ecclesia vs Church

This is my ongoing look at Emil Brunner's prophetic discussion of ecclesiology in his little classic entitled The Misunderstanding of the Church. In this blog, we will look at chapter 2 entitled The Historical Origin of the Ecclesia.

Brunner's principle thesis is that the Ecclesia of the New Testament is something other than and has little in common with the institution of the Church that has emerged out of it. To more fully appreciate that, we need to better understand the historical foundations of the Ecclesia. The first step is to look at its relationship to and distinction from God's people as revealed in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament, God chooses a people to act as the supporting character in His divine drama of redemption. They become known as Israel. In short, Israel is "the covenant-people of the covenant-God." This, too, can be said of the Ecclesia. Brunner writes:

It would seem, therefore, that according to the purpose of God the Ecclesia was to be identified with the elect people of the Old Covenant. And yet the fellowship founded by Jesus realized that it was something wholly new, namely, the fellowship of those who through Jesus Christ share in the New Covenant and the new aeon. . . through the present fulfillment of what had been previously merely promised, not simply a new [mode of dispensation] but an utterly new dimension of salvation has been vouchsafed, namely, life in the Holy Spirit, concerning which the Gospel of St. John roundly declares "for the Holy Spirit was not yet given". When Paul affirms: "if any man is in Christ he is a new creature" he is alluding to a new mode of existence not yet known to the believers of the old covenant.

This new existence, Brunner observes, leads to three observable facts in the New Testament Ecclesia.

The ceremonial and cultic laws of Judaism are no longer valid for the Ecclesia. This becomes particularly important in regard to the issue of circumcision as Christianity spreads among the Gentiles.
There is clear distinction between membership of a nation or race and membership of a community of believers. The newly baptized Gentiles are as fully citizens of the Kingdom of God as are those who were circumcised.
The Ecclesia no longer stands under the jurisdiction of or subordinate to a theocratic government. The Ecclesia renounces "the fusion of Christ's rule with the law of the state."

This last point is particularly interesting as we consider the current state of the Church within our culture. Especially, within the United States, Christianity is straining under the weight of the accumulated negative perception of society gathered over years of misguided efforts to establish a modern day theocracy. The Kingdom of God will never be equated with a secular government. The Ecclesia understood this and it informed how it related with the world around it.

I believe the emerging church movement is, in part, contributable to a renewed awareness of this life in the Holy Spirit and a reformation of the role of the Church as a delivery agent for the Kingdom of God in contradistinction to the laws-based pursuit of a Christian society. What do you think?

Timeless Wisdom has Timely Significance

2009-10-07T16:27:00.001-04:00

Image via Wikipedia

I am a regular reader of JD Greear's blog. He had a link to a letter in a recent post. The letter was written by John Newton, the author of the hymn Amazing Grace. In this letter to a church leader who is about to criticize another church leader, Newton offers some profound and grace-filled incites. Many denominations are in the throws of great conflict around the issues of orthodoxy, my own included. Additionally, I see much rancor between the many factions and movements within the Church. May we all heed Newton's words. The letter is entitled, "On Controversy" and can be read here.

Related post: Godly unity in the midst of human division

Sustainable and Reproducible Discipleship

2009-10-05T15:24:00.005-04:00

Recently, there has been a lot of talk around the blogosphere about multi-site ministry and its effectiveness or lack thereof. Neil Cole, author of Organic Church: Growing Faith Where Life Happens, among others, has a running series on the issue. I've already commented on one of Cole's posts over at his site. Today, I'm going to add my own thoughts to Cole's 4^th installment in his series, The Multi-Site Church Model.

Cole, as well as most others I'm reading, is not fond of the multi-site model. In his 4^th installment, Cole tackles the issues of whether a church is self-perpetuating and self-propagating. In short, is the church able to support its own ministry and is it able to reproduce groups that will plant, grow, and do the same. Cole, based on these criteria, links the success or failure of the church site to how independent the church is of external resources for its survival. The more dependent it is, the less likely it is to ever be self-perpetuating and self-propagating. Check out Cole's site for the full read as well as his other insights on multi-site churches.

As the pastor of a church plant that began as a multi-site, I feel as though I can bring a rather unique perspective to this discussion. Rather than self-perpetuating and self-propagating, within Threshold Church, we talk about these issues in terms of being sustainable and reproducible. Our categories are similar to Cole's, but there are important differences. First, being sustainable and reproducible is an attribute of discipleship rather than the viability or health of the church. Of course, the two are closely connected, inseparable. But, by making it an issue of discipleship, we are bringing the battle to the least common denominator within the church, i.e. the disciple.

Consequently, sustainability, as opposed to self-perpetuation, is concerned with the health of the disciple rather than the health of the church. Again, the two are inextricably connected, but the starting point is important. The Church is the fellowship of Jesus Christ. It is the community of disciples. To be sure, I am not recommending a focus on the individual. Rather, it is a focus on the person in the midst of community and how, together, we foster a model of faith that is sustainable. That faith is sustained by living in connection with the Vine, by living in Christ.

A branch that abides in the Vine, quite naturally produces fruit. So, will the disciple be reproducible. Every disciple should be following someone a little further along the journey then they while leading some that are behind him, this while we all are following Jesus Christ. When such a culture is built within a church it will quite naturally become self-perpetuating and self-propagating.

I don't believe Cole would disagree with any of this. In fact, he may see these as two separate conversations- the health of the multi-site church movement vs. the health of discipleship within a church. However, having been involved in both, I see it related in this way. When I was operating within a multi-site model, I could see over time that our ministry was neither self-perpetuating nor self-propagating, to use Cole's terms. However, I truly feel as though it had less to do with dependence on resources as it did to a lack of missional identity unique to our community. Our community failed to take ownership of our mission as a church. With that came laissez-faire and a lack of responsibility for the mission of the Church. It was not so much that we were dependent on resources, but that we were dependent on the "main campus" for our vision and values. Yes, resources and programs were handed down to the site, but more importantly the site's identity was dictated to it by the main campus. This was not a heavy-handed thing in any way. Rather, it's the nature of multi-site, i.e. one church, multiple locations. It sounds good and biblical. In principle it is. However, the practice often leads to impotent children of an otherwise potent mother church.

The decision by a majority within that site, with the blessing of the mother church, to re-locate and plant itself as a church with its unique calling within the context of the larger Church, breathed life into the ministry. More than no longer relying on others for our resources (largely, in fact, we still do), we could no longer rely on the mother church to tell us who we are or what we are to do. We needed to take ownership and responsibility for our vision and values. The biggest result of that has been a commitment to building a sustainable and reproducible culture of discipleship. Such a commitment will lead to health among the parts as well as the whole, providing fertile ground for the growth and multiplication of the Church and the proclamation of the Kingdom of God.

Do you have any experiences of multi-site ministry? What do you think its merits are? What about its shortcomings? What do you think of Neil Cole's and my critique? Agree or disagree.

7 Tips for Joining the Emerging Church Movement

2009-09-28T19:59:00.005-04:00

The title is, of course, tongue-in-cheek. Most emerging churches are zealous in their defense of the organic development of their ministries. The notion that there are seven easy steps to anything is a decidedly modern, non-emerging way of thinking about things. Additionally, emerging churches are exceptionally diverse in their praxis. However, in my own journey, I have identified some common marks within the movement. Some are generally accepted, others are my contribution to the conversation. So here they are, my 7 tips for joining the emerging church movement:

1. Be missional

"Missional" has become nearly synonymous with "emerging." To be missional as a church means to understand that the culture is increasingly distancing itself from the Church. Therefore, churches must move from an attractional model that expects those outside to come in, to a dispersed model where churches go to the world. In this way, they embrace the root meaning of the word "mission" which is "to send," as they proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God in the midst of the world through both words and actions. Thus, they reclaim the essential nature of the church as a movement, not an institution.

2. Build an environment of low control/high accountability

While Robert may have been a Christian, his "rules" are not canon. Yet, most churches are organizationally top heavy with structures based on corporate business models, not biblical principles. The result is an organization that operates with a high control/low accountability mentality. Consider the typical church structure. It consists of committees (sometimes we rename them teams to make ourselves feel better) that typically do little ministry, yet they often exert significant control over what ministries get done. It is high control. This might be palatable if we could be confident that the people making these decisions were disciples committed to growing in their faith. But, too often the people that make up these committees are warm bodies. Their qualifications were that they had the time and they were willing. That's low accountability.

Emerging Churches try to build structures that serve the organism rather than the organization. That means that out of a commitment to mission, the church tries to build structures wholly committed to that goal. A greater emphasis is placed on releasing and mobilizing the church, God's people, to do ministry. Low control is exercised. However, because of an equally great emphasis on discipleship, those doing the ministry are kept accountable for their walk with God. The desired result is a restoration of the priesthood of all believers with a very flat structure of government. This is low control/high accountability

3. Create ministries that are light weight/low maintenance

Because of the emerging church's desire to put ministry back into the hands of the people, it is important to emphasize the development of ministries that are light weight and low maintenance. Our culture, including our church culture, has typically engrained in our minds that bigger is better. More is better. So, in the church, we often talk about "the value of excellence" which is, frequently, the codename for bigger and more. However, in a priesthood of all believers, low control/high accountability environment, this model of ministry is often not sustainable, nor, in the end, desirable. These churches keep the values of simplicity and authenticity in the context of discipleship at the forefront of all their ministries.

4. Throw out the programs

Emerging churches embrace the process rather than programs. Though programs may be used within the emerging church, they are always subjugated to the larger vision of what it means to be the Church. Many emerging churches are non-programmatic. Sometimes this is a conscious decision to avoid feeding into the provider-consumer mentality that permeates much of Christian programming. Instead, there is an emphasis placed on community, generosity, and spiritual discipline.

5. Emphasize transformation

In the emerging church, discipleship is a matter of death and life. The disciple dies to the Old Adam and becomes a new creature by the grace of God and through faith in his Son Jesus Christ. There is an emphasis on the transformative power of the Holy Spirit within the life of the Christ follower. Moreover, that transformation is manifested within the entire Body of Christ. Thereby, the Church becomes an agent for transformation within the culture as it proclaims the good news of the Kingdom of God and brings that Kingdom to bear on the world. Thus, the emerging church is action oriented and believes it has a calling to be involved in matters of ecology, economy, and justice.

6. Embrace interdependence

The loss of community is one of the greatest wounds in the post-modern world. Whereas, independence was a hallmark of the modern world, interdependence is the same for the post-modern. This is to be celebrated. But the interdependence of post-modernity is a relative interdependence that is shaped by needs and circumstances. In this way it is still a shadow of truly interdependent community. Without question, the very nature of community is being reshaped by social networking and globalization. But in the midst of this societal upheaval, the emerging church offers the experience of biblical community built on vulnerability, accountability, and love. Throughout the emerging church you see this in the development of house churches, clusters, sacramental communities and the rekindled interest in monastic rules and the lives of the saints.

7. Focus on relational discipleship

Within the emerging church you see models of discipleship that are more akin to the ancient catechumenate than purpose-driven, modern models. Apprenticeship and mentoring are central within the context of couplets, triads and groups where relationships of encouragement and accountability are built. Within the safety of these relationships, individuals can ask questions and risk answers that advance honesty and vulnerability. This focus on relational discipleship is committed to a longer view on progress that diminishes the likelihood of rapid growth within the church. Even Pentecost was preceded by three years of discipleship under Jesus Christ. However, this approach has its eye on producing a church with sustainable and reproducible discipleship that leads to depth in our relationship with Christ and exponential growth for the Kingdom.

My 7 tips for joining the emerging church movement. These are some of the identifying marks of the movement that I have observed. So, what do you think? Do you disagree with any of these? What would you add to the list?

Ecclesia vs Church

2009-09-17T17:09:00.005-04:00

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No ministry I know that is labeled as postmodern or emerging seems to welcome the categorization. I believe that is due, in part, to the immense diversity that exists within these labels. Churches given the same moniker can be vastly different in terms of theology, structure, and practice. Nevertheless, there are some marks that are more commonly shared among these churches than others.

One of these defining marks that I have identified is a reformation of our understanding of the Church. Again, it takes many forms, but churches living firmly in the ethos of postmodern thought embrace a struggle to more authentically resemble the Ecclesia of the New Testament. For many, this results in a heightened missional passion and practice. There is often an emphasis on the Church's role in bringing the Kingdom of God to the world, rather than expecting the world to come to "church." For others, there is a great desire to recapture the place of the gathered body of believers as the central expression of what it means to be Church.

Threshold Church shares this struggle with many of our brothers and sisters in Christ. It was this welcome agitation that attracted me to a small, old book by theologian Emil Brunner. The book was mentioned in the midst of another I was reading and piqued my interest. The name of the book is The Misunderstanding of the Church. Having read the book, I would like to propose that it is required reading for every church leader struggling to understand the Church in the midst of the Postmodern milieu. In an effort to pique your interest, I am going to share some brief musings on each chapter over the course of the next several weeks.

Chapter one of Brunner's book is entitled The Supernatural Christian Community and the Problem of the Church. There he sets out the problem that confronts us.

"The Ecclesia of the New Testament, the fellowship of Christian believers, is precisely not that which every 'church' is at least in part—and institution, a something. The Body of Christ is nothing other than a fellowship of persons. It is 'the fellowship of Jesus Christ' or 'fellowship of the Holy Ghost', where fellowship or koinonia signifies a common participation, a togetherness, a community life. The faithful are bound to each other through their common sharing in Christ and in the Holy Ghost, but that which they have in common is precisely no 'thing', no 'it', but a 'he', Christ and the Holy Spirit. It is just in this that resides the miraculous, the unique, the once-for-all nature of the Church: that as the Body of Christ it has nothing to do with an organization and has nothing of the character of the institutional about it. This is precisely what it has in mind when it describes itself as the Body of Christ."

For Brunner, this reality of the New Testament Ecclesia is what makes it impossible to equate it with the present expression of the Church. As Brunner will lay out in the chapters ahead, the Church has so far departed from the original expression of the Ecclesia as to be unidentifiable with it. Here at the outset, he begins to establish why. The Church, as history has delivered it to us, is inseparable from its institutional standpoint. This "institutional distortion" of the Ecclesia has led to two erroneous views of the Church. In the first, we see "the replacement of a communion of persons by the legal administrative institution." Within this understanding of the Church we see dogma and government completely obscuring the movement of the Ecclesia "which is a pure communion of persons without institutional character." The equally erroneous opposing response to this, made by the protestant reformers, is the concept of the ecclesia invisibilis, the Invisible Church. At its most basic level, the doctrine of the Invisible Church declares that the true Church is defined by the sum of true believers which remains hidden amidst the world and the institution called the Church. Therefore, the ecclesia invisibilis exists as a group of individuals relationally disconnected. The problem is that this, too, robs the Ecclesia of its fundamentally indentifying mark which is fellowship.

The nature of the Ecclesia, explains Brunner, is the combining of the vertical with the horizontal, divine with human communion in an utterly unparalleled life that is unintelligible apart from its supernatural and miraculous character as the "fellowship of Christ" and the "fellowship one with the other." Next time, The Historical Origin of the Ecclesia.

Godly unity in the midst of human division

2009-08-24T21:59:00.002-04:00

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The Evangelical Lutheran Church in America made a decision at its churchwide assembly that will likely leave this denomination greatly divided. When we decided to launch Threshold Church as a mission congregation of the ELCA, we resolved to remain within this church body regardless of what decision was made. I felt this struggle was an important one for us to remain in dialogue over, to do so in a manner of love and humility, and not to run and hide from this difficult issue. I am conflicted over the decision of the ELCA, yet my immediate concern is for our unity in Christ and our witness to the world. The Kingdom of God is not served by anger, hatred, and division. So, I pray for our unity in Christ, who is the great equalizer. When we are in Him, in covenant we the Holy One of God, we find that we are all broken, all sinners and, yet, all loved, all forgiven.

I met Nadia Bolz-Weber, pastor of the Church for All Sinners and Saints, in Denver. Though our ministries and our orthopraxi are very different, I hold a respect for Nadia as she and her church struggle to live out their identity in Christ. As we struggle for healing in the midst of our brokenness, I find the words of reconciliation shared by my sister in Christ from "across the aisle" to be the words of reconciliation that I, too, hope fills the ears of all.

http://sarcasticlutheran.typepad.com/sarcastic_lutheran/2009/08/a-sermon-following-the-elca-church-wide-assembly.html

Churchwide Approval! But . . .

2009-07-30T20:05:00.003-04:00

First, here is the good news. I met with Ruben Duran today. He is the head of EOCM; long name, suffice it to say it is the branch of the national church that votes on mission churches. We discussed Threshold and he informed me of the current state of affairs. He spoke with Marc Miller, Director for Missions, and told Marc that the synod would need to come up with an additional $15,000 a year. Marc will be working on this as soon as he gets back from vacation. Additionally, the ELCA would pledge support of $35,000. But, and this is a big "but", they have no money. None. Consequently, they are prioritizing the new church starts and will give the money, based on priority, as the finances come in.

I'm meeting tomorrow one on one with Ruben to further discuss Threshold. I hope to gain some additional information and understanding of what this development means practically for Threshold. Furthermore, I intend, by the grace of God, to impress on him the import of this mission for Toledo, the Synod, and the ELCA. Please pray for me as I share this vision with Ruben. We are meeting over lunch and we are two hours behind Toledo.

There is still so much to do, but there is much to celebrate. God has opened many doors and smoothed many obstacles already for His mission through Threshold. There are many more roadblocks ahead, but our God is exceedingly powerful and amazingly faithful. Without Him we should not wish to do anything. With Him, we can do all things!

Churchwide vote to support Threshold Church

2009-07-16T18:30:00.002-04:00

Most who read this blog are aware that Threshold Church is seeking churchwide approval as a Mission Church of the ELCA. We have already received approval from the NW Ohio Synod of the ELCA. I've received the necessary approval to be the mission developer for Threshold. The last hurdle is the ELCA Churchwide approval and the accompanying financial support.

That decision was to be made last week. However, the vote was postponed for all new starts (not just Threshold) until the week of July 19. The information I have indicates that the committee is impressed and intrigued by our "application" and the description of our structure and vision as a church. Though we place no label on ourselves, the substance and style of our ministry tends to place us into the category of an emerging church ministry. This label is the cause of some concern on the part of the committee. Most emerging church ministries struggle financially. Consequently, one concern of those considering support of our ministry is the long-term fiscal feasibility for sustaining the ministry.

This concern is reasonable, because their assessment of emerging church ministries is largely accurate. However, it is not my vision and I do not believe it is God's vision for our ministry to be the recipient of the committed support of those who love God's mission for any more than six years. In fact, I believe we can be self-supporting in five years. Indeed, more than self-supporting, I believe we can be about the task of planting a mission of our own within that time.

For this to happen, we all need to die to self and live for Christ. Our financial giving will have to far exceed that of the average church. But God has not called us to be average. He has called all of us to be "ambassadors for Christ", bringing the Kingdom of God to a world in need. For that to happen, we will need to lay down our lives for God's greater purposes. It will take sacrifice. It will take great faith. It will take courage. Financially, we will all need to take seriously God's standard of sacrificial giving- the tithe or 10% of our income.

The vision for Threshold does not include it being an unsustainable taker of resources for the Kingdom. We are called to be a giving church. I believe that in so many ways. As God blesses our ministry, we will give back to the Church as we are graced with the privilege of teaching other churches how to be missional. We will give back to the Church, by becoming a training ground and launching pad for missionaries who will take the Good News of the Kingdom of God throughout Toledo, Ohio, and beyond. We will give back to the Church by being faithful in our giving and exemplary in our commitment to supporting ministries beyond our own.

This will not be the typical pattern of emerging churches. But it will be our pattern. It will be our pattern or we will fall short of the calling that God has given us. As I considered planting Threshold, God NEVER told me it would be easy. He did assure me that it would be vastly rewarding. I must tell you that same thing. Much will be demanded from us in the days that lie ahead. You will be asked to stretch yourself and risk as perhaps never before in your life. But I can assure you, it will be rewarding. It will be an adventure. Being an ambassador for Christ will give you a sense of fulfillment and purpose for your life like nothing else can. I am willing to do all this. I ask you to join me. More importantly, I believe God is calling us all to do this important work for the Kingdom. May God bless you all!

Who’s the focus of our worship?

2009-06-08T15:26:00.001-04:00

God continues to shape and mold our ministry. Most recently, we have made some important changes in our worship. I'm entirely uncertain how many people have even picked up on these changes to this point. However, that is fine. One might say, even expected. The issue that needed to be addressed was this. Through prayer and study, I really believed our worship was too focused on the self, rather than on God. Consider for a moment that statement. If worship is focused on the self, then is not the self the focus of our worship? Clearly, no church would suggest that we should be the focus of our own worship, yet that tendency manifests itself in thousands of churches every weekend. We are so concerned with being "relevant" that we adopt a marketing mentality to all that we do. Our messages are centered on the self- "How to have a successful marriage," "How to be financially free," "How to … this" "How to … that." The Gospel message in many churches seems to be plucked right from the self-help aisle of your local Barnes and Noble. Believe me, I understand that as I point this finger there are three more pointing back at me. I stand accused, as do many teachers of God's Word. But, it doesn't stop there, either!

Often our entire Sunday morning experienced seemed to be structured with little more in mind than serving those who were there. Moreover, this was in a church that was not trying to be "seeker-targeted." We simply seemed to drift into this mode more often than not. If the message was about relationships (again, who is the focus here?), we would have an amusing sketch to accompany the theme (and entertain the people, perhaps?). If the theme for a series was the Kingdom of God, maybe we would have a knight periodically appear throughout the series and provide some "relevant," but comic relief (Yes, we really did this). More often than not, whatever creative element we implemented in worship had little if anything to do with God.

Please understand, as some of our creative arts people may very well read this, that we all blindly went down this alley and I was the blind leading the blind. However, something started to nag me about worship. If worship is, essentially, the praise of God, why did so little of our worship seemed to be focused on him? It really started when I began doing a very pet peeve of my own. I started to refer to the music AS the worship. We would have just finished a particular planned element when I would say, "Okay, let's worship now." So what were we doing before? How did music become the only expression of worship on Sunday mornings? The really scary thing to be about this was that it was accurate. Little else that we did felt like worship. In fact, it was not. God was not the focus.

So, we have begun the task of changing this. Yet, it is not a simple fix. I now firmly believe that unless we are intentional we will continue to slip back into the comfortable fix of making ourselves the focus. Why? It's original sin. It's what comes naturally to us. We make ourselves the center of all our endeavors. In the words of the theologian Paul Tillich, we make ourselves our "ultimate concern", which means that I make "me" more important than God. I make "me" my own god. I make "me" the focus of my worship.

Now we are conscious of this constant pull away from God and back to ourselves as we plan worship. We are starting to say to one another, "Hold on. Are we making ourselves the focus, again?" Rather than designing services around a theme, we are designing worship to lift up an attribute or characteristic of God. We are intent on putting God at the center… and we need to be.

2009-05-04T15:27:00.002-04:00

The Church in America needs to change. If it does not, the state of Christianity in the U. S. is in danger of duplicating the state of the Church in the U. K. within ten years. In England, only 3% of people attend a church. The Church exists well outside the boundaries of the culture and society. Its position of influence on the world around it is minimal at best.

Increasingly, the Church here in the U. S. is becoming irrelevant, unable to engage a culture that is leaving it behind as an antiquated, anachronistic institution representative of a passing time and generation. Frankly, the church has earned this distinction. Largely, the church has failed to recognize that it is no longer the focal point of cultural and societal activity. The world has moved away from it while it remained fixated on itself and its own preservation. Our communities became increasingly inclusive and the world progressively more "flat." Meanwhile, the church circled its wagons and closed its borders in an effort to protect a mindset that has little to do with the proclamation of the Gospel and everything to do with its parochialism. Just as the institutional church rejected Galileo and his scientific reality that the earth was not at the center of the universe, much of the institutional church is now blindly rejecting the socio-political reality that the church is not at the center of people's lives.

Still others in the Church have taken notice of this cultural shift. However, in an attempt to reach the culture they have walked the line of compromising the Gospel to the point where Christ and culture are indistinguishable. Well meaning people have adopted methods of "evangelism" that do little more than feed into the consumerism that is already rampant and increasingly understood as responsible for the breakdown of community. It has led to churches that are filled with people who are "happy" as long as the church meets their needs. When the church no longer serves that function, the "attender" simply breaks ranks and looks for the next God fix provided by some other church or loses all need and interest in the church altogether and walks away completely.

This may all sound harsh, but the numbers back it up. Researchers from Barna to Gallup agree that, despite the mega-church movement of the last twenty years, the state of Christianity in the U. S. is and has been one of decline. This is occurring while our culture is still among the most religious in the world.

This is sobering, but within it is the potential for a great awakening of the Church and a rediscovery of its purpose as the envoy of the Kingdom of God. It is time for the Church to stop seeing itself as institution and again see itself as a movement. This is the approach of the Church in the pre-Christian environment found within the book of Acts and it is the right approach for the post-Christian environment of the U. S. in 2009. Much like the U. S., the Greek and Roman cultures of the Middle East and Mediterranean corridor were highly religious, yet ambiguous. The Church was in no position to expect anyone to come to them. They had to engage the culture, yet not in order for Christ to become one with the culture, but in order that Christ might transform culture and the Church would act as that transformational agent in the world.

The strength of this ministry was found in its weakness. Left to its own devices the Church was destined to fail. Its message was a stumbling block to the Jews and foolishness to the Gentiles. For the Jews, the message of Jesus Christ crucifixion was an embarrassment. The word translated as "stumbling block" is scandalon. Yes, it is where we get the word "scandal" from and its meaning was closely associated with the idea of "disgrace." Still, the Jewish faith shared an understanding of the Scriptures (i.e. Old Testament) and of Sin. They neither had to be convinced of God's Law or their need for salvation. However, to the Gentile this was all just foolishness. They neither shared an understanding of Scripture or of Sin. As the messenger to the Gentiles, Paul could not rely on a shared understanding of God or the need for redemption. If he or the Church at that time, began their message with the amorphous question, "If you died tonight, do you know where you would go" they would have received a host of answers that had nothing to do with God or Sin or Heaven or Hell, nor would have their audience possessed any foundation on which to understand such concepts. Their world was highly religious, but not even remotely Christian.

I believe the same is increasingly true today. When I began in ministry just twenty years ago, meeting someone who was first generation unchurched (i.e. they had never gone to church, but their parents had) was unusual, but certainly not unheard of. Today, not only is it common to meet people who are first generation unchurched, but it is not highly unusual to meet someone who is second generation unchurched (i.e. neither they nor their parents have ever gone to church). Consequently, the Church can not operate with an expectation that it shares a religious foundation with the world around it. At the threat of complete ineffectiveness, the Church is being forced to rethink how it communicates the Gospel.

When the culture shares a biblical world view, the distance that one must travel from recognition of our Sin to acknowledging our need for a Savior is a short distance indeed. When the culture does not share that biblical world view, the starting point and the destination are not even on the same maps. In this context, the most effective witness comes through the combination of hearing the Good News of the Kingdom of God and seeing that Kingdom manifest itself in the world. Herein lies the source of the early churches success. They understood that the witness of their words was not enough. Christ told them to wait for the gift of the Holy Spirit before venturing out as his witnesses (Acts 1:4ff). The work of the Holy Spirit was absolutely necessary in their ability to engage and transform the culture around them. It would not simply be by words but the inbreaking of the Kingdom of God into the world through their witness. We see it again and again in the example of their lives and the power of their actions. God performed many signs and wonders through the people of His Church (Acts 2:43, Acts 4:30, Acts 5:12, Acts 6:8, Acts 14:3). They absolutely expected God to show up and confirm the message he had given them to share with the world. The Apostle Paul reiterated this in his first letter to the Corinthians when he said, "I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. ⁴My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit's power, ⁵so that your faith might not rest on men's wisdom, but on God's power." In his letter to the Romans, he again says, "I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done— ¹⁹by the power of signs and miracles, through the power of the Spirit."

The pursuit of increased church attendance was never the mission of the church. Increasing our "numbers" should have never been the measure of evangelism. Yes, it is the byproduct, with the caveat that the numbers increased are those who put their faith in Christ, not those who attend our church. Even then, evangelism has always been, biblically speaking, the "going", the "taking", "the proclaiming" of the Gospel to the world! The Church must be a movement. As it was in the first century pre-Christian culture, so it shall be in our 21^st century post-Christian culture. People will come to Christ only when the Kingdom comes to them. Moreover, as they did in the 1^st century, so we go now- with the faith that God will confirm His message. The message of Christ crucified may seem foolishness to an unbelieving world that lacks any biblical context for hearing that message. But the manifestation of the Kingdom into their lives through God's envoy- the Church- will confirm the message. When ordinary, everyday men and women do extraordinary things in the name of Christ our weakness points to God's power. Today, as then, we will not rely on wise and persuasive words. We will not turn to the devices of man. We will not put our confidence in the most eloquent preacher or the slickest projection or the most professional band. We will put our faith in the demonstration of the Spirit's power. The Church will confess all it's prideful sin in its own ability to manufacture what God alone can produce- faith! And we will go. As God has called us, we will go, and proclaim the good news of the Kingdom of God.
For further discussions on the issues of missiology and ecclesiology check out the following posts:

What’s been going on?

2009-03-16T15:19:00.001-04:00

You may have noticed an acute absence of new material in my blog. Well, now I can fill everyone in on what's been going on. Back in January, a decision was reached to a process that began in November of 2008. "10:35", a satellite ministry of St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Maumee, would begin the process of establishing itself as a mission church. That set into motion a chain of events that continues up to this moment and will continue for at least the next year.

The immediate issues were the announcement of this change to both the congregations of St. Paul's and "10:35". Additionally, the ministry needed to find a new location. It needed to clear that location with the local church government, called a synod, as well as, garner their support for the establishment of the mission. It also needed to meet with the area churches, prepare a document to share its philosophy of ministry, and begin casting the vision.

The announcement has been made. The Synod is on board. The area churches are supportive. The Philosophy of Ministry has been written. The vision is being cast. And, oh yes, the new location has been found and, in fact, this past week was our first Sunday there. Moreover, we are no longer "10:35". We are now Threshold Church. So, as you can see, I've been a little busy.

The result of all of this is a lot of excitement with a healthy mix of utter obedience to and dependence on God.

As I mentioned, this past week was our first week at our new location. We are now meeting in the Omni Nightclub on Bancroft Avenue, one block off of the University of Toledo campus. We are really excited about reaching out to this community with the good news of Jesus Christ. We expect God to do great things and for His Kingdom to intersect with the lives of many, many people. The first Sunday was absolutely wonderful. We are taking this opportunity to put much greater emphasis on our vision and to study together what it means to be the Church. You can listen to that message via our website: www.1035online.org . Yeah, that's one of the things we need to do that we haven't gotten around to. The website name will change, but for now that's still the location.

What is really important is that we do not waste this opportunity that God has given us. A time of such change is a time for introspection with the goal of clarification. We need to answer the question of who we are. Why has God called us together? For what purpose has God placed us here? These are, indeed, questions that every church should ask itself. God has given God has placed on the heart of Threshold Church a strong desire to rediscover the Biblical Church and its purpose. We certainly do not claim to have the only way or even the right way. We are simply trying to pursue that in a faithful way. Should not every church do the same?

That's all for now. I do hope to get back to blogging and I will in the weeks to come as I share with you the journey that God has me and Threshold on.

Peace,

Tom

Lessons from Leviticus

2009-01-14T18:24:00.001-05:00

Being in the midst of reading the Bible in 90 days, Roger and I were discussing the Levitical code- i.e. the laws found within the book of Leviticus. We were marveling at how pervasive these laws are. They encompassed nearly every facet of life, from diet to bodily fluids. It struck the both of us as to how much this must have played into the formation of the Jews as a community. They truly were a people set apart by God.

It was impossible for them to forget their covenant relationship with God, because God had given them laws that kept that covenant always before them. Nearly every moment of every day was lived with the awareness of God's presence in their lives. Every part of their life was given or dedicated to God through the Law.

Any sane person would sigh in relief and offer a prayer of thanks that God has released us from much of this Levitical code. Living by such a code would radically alter our western culture lives. For an interesting and sometimes comic look at following these laws in a modern world, check out A. J. Jacobs' book, The Year of Living Biblically.

Jacobs', though not a religious person himself, decided to take on the task of living the laws of the Bible as literally as possible. One of the funnier segments is his attempt to stone a sinner. By the end of the book, one thing is certain. This attempt entirely altered his life.

All of this leads me to the following thought. While we are certainly thankful for not having to follow many of these laws, are we perhaps missing out on the depth of understanding of how all pervasive our relationship with God is to our lives. As Christians, we talk about surrendering our whole lives to God, but few of us will ever do that to the level required by God of His people Israel. When St. Paul talked about giving our lives as a "living sacrifice" to God, as a Pharisaic educated Jew he genuinely understood and appreciated the magnitude of what he was saying. Our commitment to Christ should EXCEED that of the Law.

Imagine the witness of a community of believers so sold out to God. Imagine the power of such lives to transform the world they live in into the likeness of the Kingdom of God. What would your life be like if you had such a deep and all encompassing covenant relationship with the Father through His Son Jesus Christ? Would we then fully experience the promise of that covenant, the filling of the Holy Spirit? Would it be said of us like Noah and Abraham and Isaac that we "walked with God"? Would we more readily HEAR the voice of God? Yes, yes, and yes! Oh, how I want that for my life! Oh, how I learn the truth of those words as I increase my surrender to the will of God! May we all learn what it means to offer ourselves really and truly as a "living sacrifice."

Birthday Musings

2008-12-15T11:06:00.001-05:00

So, as I am writing this, I have just turned 46 years old. Certainly, age is a perspective and to some of you reading this that might seem quite young while others may shocked at how someone so old can look so young. Okay, maybe not, but you get the idea. How old one appears (or feels) is really a matter of perspective.

I was thinking about being 46 and wondering if my best years of productivity are behind me. Then I began to wonder, "What if I have another 46 years?" What would prevent them from being the most productive years of my life? Why would I stop growing? In my faith? In my wisdom? I think of someone like Billy Graham who reached far, far more people with the gospel between the age of 46 and his current age of 90 then he did in his first 46 years.

Ultimately, however, I thought this: Is not God bigger than all this? Is not God larger than any one life (save Jesus) could contain? Believing that with all my heart, could I not expect to grow in Christ my entire life? Indeed, the only thing that can prevent this is myself. If I believe I have reached my full capacity or decided I had done enough with my life, then I could certainly hinder the effectiveness of my life. I could put a halt on and fail to realize the full potential of the life God has planned for me.

May I never do that and may you never do that. May you keep living this life until such time that you join Christ in the resurrection and then may you continue to live your life to the fullest in Him. May you never believe that your life is meant for anything less than the greatness God has planned for it. May you live with anticipation of each day and unwrapping the lifelong gift of potential that is ours from God. And most of all, may you live in utter awe of how big our God is.

The Learning Circle

2008-11-17T08:46:00.001-05:00

I've been asked to blog about this teaching that I've shared with a number of people. It is a way of processing the positive change that God wants to create in our lives. We call it the Learning Circle. It is one of the discipleship tools from an overall set of tools called LifeShapes.

When we speak of time, as is often the case, the Greek language (the language the New Testament was written in) has multiple words to indicate multiple types of time. Chronos is the type of time associated with a clock. One minute after another, it is the passing of time. It is where we get the word "chronological," indicating an orderly series, a progression.

Another kind of time is kairos. Whereas, chronos is the passing of moments, kairos is an event. It is a moment in time. It is akin to saying, "I had the time of my life." You are not saying that there was a minute or hour that was particularly notable. What you are probably saying is that there was an event, a happening, an occurrence that was significant.

Jesus speaks of such a time, such a kairos. In Mark 1:15, we find the first words of Jesus ministry. As such, we can assume that they are important. These are the words that Jesus used to announce his message to the world. So what does he say? Jesus says, "The time has come…" The word for "time" here is kairos. Now when Jesus speaks of kairos, this significant event or occurrence, he is speaking about something very specific. He tells us what that is in the next part of this verse. "The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near." The kairos that Jesus speaks of is the breaking of the Kingdom of God into the world. He was announcing that where he is, there is the Kingdom. This same thing continues to be true in our lives. In Revelation 3:20, Jesus says, "Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me." Daily, constantly, Jesus Christ wants to enter into our lives. He wants to draw us closer to him and to his Father in heaven. He wants his Kingdom, his rule, his reign to break into our lives.

These "kairos moments", as we call them, happen all the time. They can come in a multitude of forms. Some may be seemingly negative experiences. Some may be positive. They can be big, life changing events or small, presumably insignificant occurrences. All of them represent an event that God wants to use to draw us closer to him. What we need to understand is how we react to them. Most people tend to react in one of two ways. The first is to ignore them. It may not even be that we consciously ignore them. We simply miss them. We let the moments of our life come and go without any consideration of what role God may have planned for them and us. We live life simply in the chromos, oblivious to the kairos moments.

Others of us are so affected by such moments that we become paralyzed. Often this happens with difficult or challenging kairos moments. We are so fearful that we become, in essence, stuck in time, unwilling to engage the change that God has planned for us.

But, there is a third way. We can engage the kairos. We can enter into it, learn from it, and allow God to change us. This is the way outlined by Jesus in his opening words. "The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!" Jesus tells us how we are to respond to the kairos moments in our lives: Repent and believe. These two actions make up the two halves of what we call the Learning Circle.

Let's start with repentance. Repentance is typically associated in a converse way with sin. In other words, we do something wrong (sin) and we need to stop doing that wrong thing and start doing the right thing (repentance). However, the greek word (the original language of the Bible) really indicates more than that. The word is metanoia. It means to change one's mind. So, rather than a negative context, repentance means, simply, to have a change of heart that results in a lifestyle or behavioral change. Repentance can be our response to good, bad, happy, or sad stimuli. The key is that it creates positive change. Repentance is the beginning of change that results in a disciple taking on more of the character of Jesus Christ.

There are three steps to help us work through the repentance halve of the circle. They are to Observe, Reflect, and Discuss. To observe means to simply think through the facts- the who, what, where, and when. Observation is important because it helps us to gain an objective view of the kairos moment in question. Next, we reflect. This is where we ask the why questions. Why did it make me feel this way? Why did it happen? Why does it seem important? We also begin to ask, "What change might God want to initiate in me through this?"

Progress is being made. However, we still need more clarity. So we discuss the kairos with a trusted friend who is walking the path of change with us, someone who also follows Christ. God created us to live in interdependence, not independence. So, we turn to others to help us through these times of change. With these trusted friends, we move from the repentance side of the circle into the believe side of the circle, for now we must put our thoughts into action.

That is one of the most important things to understand about the process of believing. It is an action word. Belief is demonstrated in action. So, the three steps of the believe half of the circle are Plan, Account, and Act.

First, we plan. We consider all that we have learned from observing, reflecting, and discussing the kairos, and now we develop a plan for positive change. We do this with the help and wisdom of others. We keep at least one other person completely informed of our plan. Why? So, they can keep us accountable. That is the next step in the circle- Account. We ensure that someone is prepared to keep us accountable for our actions, particularly the plan of action that has come out of this kairos.

Finally, then we must take the step that is necessary for the completion of the circle. We must act. We must do the thing God has moved us to do. We must act on the plan that has come out of our kairos.

These kairos moments are meant to produce positive change in our life. Positive change that allows the Kingdom of God (i.e. The Rule of God) to invade our lives and change that strengthens our relationship with Christ. I hope you daily become more aware of the kairos moments in your life.

Faith and Doubt

2008-10-20T11:23:00.001-04:00

[Reader: Originally, I started this as an answer to a comment left on the last post entitled "The Following Leader." However, I felt as though the material was relevant enough for a post. The overriding question of the comment I am responding to was, essentially, "How do I overcome my doubts about healing?" Trust me when I say I am oversimplifying an incredibly thoughtful and thought-provoking comment, so I encourage you to go back and read what they had to say.]

Your questions are most of the questions I have been dealing with for over half of my life. Moreover, these questions have been asked by seekers and Christ-followers alike for almost two thousand years. The answers are simple, but not easy.

The core issue here is one of faith. Consequently, we have to begin with a discussion of the nature of faith. Essentially, we can sort faith into three categories. The first we will call public convictions. Public convictions are not necessarily faith at all. It is more PR exhibited for the benefit of others. It is the display of faith that one feels is necessary to gain advantage or approval from others. King Herod demonstrated this "faith" that is really no more than the appearance of faith when he asked the magi to share with him the location of the newborn Christ so that he, too, could worship him. Herod didn't want to worship Jesus. He wanted to kill him. He said what he thought was necessary to gain the approval of the magi.

Though our reasons are most assuredly not as extreme, we can often display public convictions that we really don't believe. The culture we live in or even the people we are currently in the presence of dictate the faith we are willing to share. So, hypothetically, you are, politically, a member of party xyz. However, in this election you believe you are going to vote for the presidential candidate of party abc. Now you are out to dinner with some of your long time xyz cronies. They are talking about how wonderful the candidate of xyz is. You sit there and nod your head in agreement, because it is easier to agree at this point than to express your true feelings and ruin a perfectly good dinner. This demonstrates how our public convictions do not always represent what we truly believe.

The next type of faith we demonstrate can be summarized as our private convictions. Private convictions are things I think I believe until circumstances change and show me that I do not believe them. For example, you are in a relationship and you sincerely believe that you have found the perfect partner. That is, until you find out that they have been unfaithful all along. Suddenly, you don't want to ever see that person again. Were your convictions sincere? Absolutely. Were they true? Not so much.

A biblical example of this is found when Jesus tells Peter that he will deny him three times. Peter exclaims that this would never happen. Did he sincerely believe this? Yes. Was it true? No.

The last type of faith is represented by our core convictions. Core convictions are beliefs that are so absolutely real to us that we would never, never violate them. Our public convictions may be bogus. Our private convictions may be fickle. But, our core convictions are actually believed and demonstrated by our actions. This is what James means when he writes, "Faith without works is dead." (James 2:17-19) His point is not that it is our works or our actions that get us into heaven. His point is that our actions demonstrate the depth of our convictions. Consequently, faith that is unaccompanied by actions that demonstrate our conviction is something less than true faith. In may be public. It may even be private. But it is not core. It is this core faith that Jesus wants to work on in our lives. It is our core convictions that he is concerned about.

So, as we speak about healing, the principle issue is our core convictions. This is what we are really talking about when we speak of faith. Now, does the presence of faith mean that there will be no doubt? Not at all. To the contrary, one cannot doubt without faith. Doubt is evidence of the presence of faith. Consider, if someone does not believe in something they do not have doubt about it. They simply lack faith. Doubt, on the other hand, is the questioning of what one believes. It is an uncertainty or lack of confidence. It presupposes faith.

Let me give you an example. Do you have faith that I read every comment posted on my blog? I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that your answer is "Yes." Now your confidence is not born out of ignorance. It is firmly grounded in experience. Most of the time, I respond to the questions posed in my comments. Moreover, you know a little bit about me. I'm a pretty stand-up guy. It would be contrary to my character to give the appearance of reading all my comments when in actuality I do not. But can you prove it? I don't always respond and the only way you have of knowing, absolutely knowing I have read a comment, is when I do respond. So, can you say without a shadow of a doubt that I have read every comment? No, really, you can't. That is the presence of doubt in faith.

Now, over time, can your confidence and your certainty grow? Absolutely. How? If I continue to prove myself to be faithful in answering, your doubt will decrease and your certainty will increase. Even if I don't answer every comment, the preponderance of the evidence would point to the fact that I do read them all.

When it comes to healing prayer, the pattern is much the same. My faith in God and his ability to heal is not born out of ignorance. First, it is grounded in what I know about God. As I have grown in my relationship with God, as I have gotten to know him better, His character becomes clearer to me. Furthermore, God has demonstrated his willingness and ability to heal. Numerous times over my ministry, I have seen people healed in such a way that even doctors have referred to them as miracles. Now, has every person I've prayed for been healed? No. So, can I say without a shadow of a doubt that God heals? No, really, I can't. But faith is not about the absence of doubt. It is about the presence of certainty. As it says in Hebrews 11, "Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see." It's interesting what this verse infers. The ability to actually "see" or to know beyond a shadow of a doubt destroys faith. Why? Because then it is no longer faith. You know. You don't believe.

But I will say this. The more I pray for healing, the more I trust God and believe that he will heal, the more faithful he proves himself to be. Does He heal everyone? No. Do I understand why? Not a chance. But the preponderance of the evidence of my experience increases my certainty every day. So, do not let your doubts discourage you. Pray as you can, not as you can't. In other words, pray with what faith you have and ask God to assuage what doubts you have. As a father once said who brought his son to Jesus for healing prayer, "I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!" (Mark 9:24)

[Much credit is given to John Ortberg, noted Christian author and pastor of Menlo Park Presbyterian Church and his message given on October 5, 2008 concerning the issue of faith.]

Lead and Get Out of the Way: The Following Leader

2008-10-08T11:59:00.001-04:00

I've been discussing the issue of leadership within the Church and, more specifically, leading the ministry of which I have been given oversight. If you haven't already, you will really need to read the last two posts in order to track this continuing dialogue. I would also recommend that you read the comments as there have been some very interesting conversations that have ensued.

I thought it would be helpful (for me, at least) to brain-dump an example of how I have seen this leadership come into play at "10:35". Healing has never been a part of my ministry. Never may be too strong, but to be honest, for the better part of my ministry I never treated it seriously. Let me explain.

I believed God healed. However, I never really, truly expected to see healing myself. I would pray for it when I visited folks in the hospital, but usually these prayers were pretty safe. I would pray for God to fully equip the doctors to use the gifts he had given them. I would pray for a quick recover from a surgery already performed. Any healing beyond this I would always temper with the phrase "If it be Your Will." "Father, if it be Your Will, please heal [name] from [insert condition]." "Father, we ask that you heal [name] from [insert condition], but Your will be done, not ours." Safe, conditional, healing prayer. Occasionally, when someone was really ill we might have a group of people lay hands on a person and pray. But this was prayer reserved for desperate times. It was not the norm. It was the exception and any answer to such prayer would have stunned us all. Certainly, we would have given God the credit and praised Him for it. But, that was a vague hope. The desperate pangs of a desperate people.

I had often felt convicted by this and had even shared my concerns with some colleagues over the years. I challenged them to consider whether our actions demonstrated that we really believed that God could and does heal. This was usually met with much skepticism. However, I never really went much further with this. I still struggled with believing, really believing, that God would heal, or even more to the point, that he would choose to heal someone through our prayer. This was my basic mode of ministry for over eighteen years.

Then in the summer of 2007, I was introduced to a group of people in Sheffield, England- St. Tom's Church. They seemed to really believe, yet even more than believe, they totally expected God to show up in their midst and do miraculous things. Their reason for believing it was so simple and so child-like that it couldn't help but make you smile. "That's what God promised to do. Just read the Bible," they would say. Still, what was I to make of this? Initially, I was forced to make a choice much like the famous "choice" of CS Lewis in Mere Christianity. Either they were lying, in which case, they were deceivers and really very bad people, or they were delusional. There was some form of group hallucination taking place. They all really believed God was doing miracles, but they were wrong. If this were true, there was at the root of this church an unhealthy and dysfunctional culture. Neither of these made sense in light of the relationships I formed and the people I grew to know and love. Moreover, while I was there, I experienced a number of things that convicted me to open myself up to the possibility that God wanted to be far more involved in my life than I had allowed Him to be. So, upon returning from Sheffield, I made a simple promise with God. I was committed to being more open to his working in my life. That, my friends, was the beginning of the end of all my previous perceptions of leading the Church.

God took control and to bring us back to our former conversation we flash forward to the winter of 2008. It was at that time that God compelled me to write a message on the issue of healing. The text was, of all things, the second petition of the Lord's Prayer- "Your Kingdom come, Your will be done." [ah, remember the tag-line to those safe, healing prayers I prayed] I really had no clue how to approach this message, so I dived into the Bible and read everything on healing. I came away completely convicted and convinced of not only God's power to heal, but also God's desire to heal. I shared that message being completely transparent to how challenging this was for me. I really had no idea what the response from people would be.

Let me pause here to bring us back to the issue of leadership. Previously, every message was given with a predetermined outcome in mind. Everything was done this way. It all pointed to and was prepared to move us toward a defined and preferred future as a church. I don't mean to make this sound too clinical. God was certainly invited into the process, but truthfully we orchestrated it. We were leading. I was leading. I would ask God for his guidance, but I was treating God a little like my own personal GPS unit. "God-God how do I get to …" I relied on God for direction, but I was still behind the wheel.

Suddenly, God was driving. There was no predetermined outcome in mind with giving this message. No preferred future as a church, other than growing closer to God. There was no reason for giving this message other than God having decided it. I was now beginning to lead by following. That sounds so formulaic and staid, but in reality it was terrifying. I was out of control. I had no idea how the people of 10:35 would respond to a message that we should expect to see signs and wonders and foremost among them was healing. What I certainly did not expect was for them to embrace it wholeheartedly. People began asking for healing prayer and other people started praying for them. I mean really praying for them- pulling them aside on Sunday, before worship, after worship, laying hands on them. And they believed. They had every confidence that God would heal.

And God did. He continues to do so. Time and time again, we are seeing it. Cancer, inner-ear problems, damaged hearts, arthritis, blood disorders. God has and continues to do miracles in our midst. Now this is what I mean in a previous post by "leading from the middle." God compelled me to share a message. The people responded and followed the Word of God. Now we are a church heading in a direction I would have never expected. People want healing. People pray for healing. God delivers. I'm not deciding the direction of the church. I am a witness to it. I bear witness to what God is doing in our midst and what God wants to do. The rest is God and His Church. It's really a pretty amazing thing to be a part of. What do you think?

Lead and Get Out of the Way, Part 2

2008-09-24T16:11:00.001-04:00

I'm hardly a details person, but I am a planner. Big picture visionary stuff is kind of my thing. I can see the finished whole. I understand what it will take to get there. I can envision what elements are necessary for the accomplishment of the goals and who is needed to make them happen. Again the day to day tactical, not so much, but I take real pride in orchestrating the movement of the organization towards its preferred future. Or, perhaps, I should say, "TOOK real pride."

Why do I say that? Well, in what is a very unnerving turn of events, the finished whole now seems to be beyond my sight. I have no clear picture of the destination. In the absence of that vision, I find myself in an incredibly vulnerable leadership position. My greatest strengths have been stripped away. Previously, I found great security in being out in front. That is, after all, where a leader is supposed to be. However, now I increasingly find myself leading from the middle. How can that be? Ah, that IS the question, isn't it?

It is, as if, the whole church is being swept up in some change, pulled (or led) in some direction, wholly removed from the leadership of any one person. Do not misunderstand this to mean that the church is without direction. Not at all. The longer we are caught up in this, the clearer the direction becomes, the more definitively intelligent and wise it proves to be.

What can I compare this to? I've sat here for a good 45 minutes thinking about that and here is the best I can come up with. It is as if you are looking at a painting by Monet, but at the start the painting is a mere few centimeters from your eyes. What you see are colors, dots of color, without any apparent pattern or purpose. You cannot see the big picture. The entirety of the canvass is beyond your field of vision. However, ever so slow the painting is being pulled back, giving you perspective. Dots of color begin to gather into patterns. Order emerges from chaos. You begin to become aware of the whole. You cannot complete it, but you know without a shadow of a doubt that it is there and that when you do see it, it will be beautiful, a masterpiece. Slowly you gain perspective. Your eyes, your mind decipher the pattern as it's revealed.

What that means for me is that I cannot lead from the front. I must lead from the middle. Leading from the front is defined by orchestration. Leading from the middle is defined by interpretation. Consider the conductor of an orchestra. This leadership is dependent on knowing what piece that is to be played. Only then can the conductor lead the pieces of the whole in creating a desired outcome- in this case beautiful music. This is leading from the front. Leading from the middle requires an entirely different skill set. Leading from the middle is about listening to the music as opposed to leading it. It's indentifying the melody amidst the sound. It involves processing and contextualizing the big picture as it is revealed in ever growing but minute proportions. Then the leader's role becomes revelation, helping the church to see and to embrace the masterpiece that God is making of it.

Well, as I have said, these are certainly not finished thoughts. They are thoughts in process, as I increasingly understand that all things are. I have no doubt that I will change my mind, contradict myself, and come back around to where I've started more than a few times as I think my way through this. But, slowly, I know, order will emerge from the chaos. Let me know what you think, because you are, no doubt, a part of this big picture.

Lead and Get Out of the Way

2008-09-11T11:05:00.003-04:00

After 19 years of ministry, I’m learning that leading a ministry is not about being in control. On an intellectual level or, perhaps, even more relevantly, on a spiritual level, I knew this. Ultimately, leading the church is about following Christ. You are never in control. God is. But, recently, I have found there to be a much deeper, more profound set of principles at work. It is something so new to me, so transforming, that I am having difficulty even processing it.

That’s why I’ve decided to blog about it. I want to invite you into the conversation. I want to invite you into this world of messy leadership. So, let’s take a stab at opening up this topic.

I would have to say that I became aware on some level of an organic shift in our ministry at “10:35” a little more than 18months ago. We had made some significant changes before that, but the difference is that those changes were orchestrated. They were planned. We had begun to move away from a “church of attraction” model to a “missional church” model. However, in the wake of this shift, some things became increasingly clear for the future of our ministry.

Particularly, for me, it meant making some decisions to surrender my desire to control. That’s where I’ll pick things up next week.
Read the rest of the series here:

Does "success" have an age limit?

2008-09-01T13:27:00.009-04:00

I think most of us have heard of the concept of a "biological clock". It has an actual scientific meaning, but by and large it is understood as that window of opportunity for a woman to have a child. If a woman says her biological clock is "ticking", she typically means that she believes the window is closing on any chance of having a child.

There is another "clock" that seems to induce worry, frustration, and resignation in many people. The clock I speak of is the clock of success. The "clock of success" is the phrase I am using for that self-defined window of opportunity to reach some desired level of achievement with one's life. So many men and women I speak with feel the pressure of this clock. College students struggle with the decision of "what to do with my life", as if their life will be defined by this one decision. Many boomers, now in their 50's and 60's, have resigned themselves to a lingering sense of being unfulfilled. Young or old, we seem to constantly ask ourselves if that window has not closed on us. We wonder if we have not squandered what opportunity we may have had. We are vexed by the question, "Is it too late for me?"

One reason we feel this way is our society's infatuation with those who experience the meteoric rise to fame and fortune. Michael Dell and Bill Gates made millions by the time they were 25. Michael Phelps, at the age of 23, stands uncontested as the greatest Olympian of all time. Miley Cyrus, love her or hate her, has built a marketing empire at the age of 15. So, is it too late for me, is it too late for you, to succeed in your life?

Let me reassure you. It is not. In way of spurring you on, let me introduce you to a few people. First, there is Ray Kroc. Ray, at age 52, was a milk shake machine salesman until he entered an establishment owned by two brothers and pitched an idea to franchise the concept. The brothers would get one-half of one percent of the gross profit. Kroc got the rights to open the franchises. The name of those brothers? McDonald. The rest is history.

If you are a fan of crime fiction and detective stories, you know the name of Detective Philip Marlowe. But, did you know that the man who created this character, Raymond Chandler, never published anything until he was 45 and didn't publish his first book until he was 51.

Or consider the story of Grandma Moses. She had to give up embroidery in her 70's because of arthritis in her hands. So, she picked up a paint brush and a piece of wood and took up painting. Her work was eventually exhibited throughout the world. In 1949, at the age of 89, President Harry S. Truman presented her with the Women's National Press Club trophy award for outstanding accomplishment in art. In 2006, one of her paintings entitled Sugaring Off (circa 1943) sold for 1.2 million dollars.

Of course, an important piece in all of this is how we define "success." The success of our life should not be measured by the very temporary criteria of fame or fortune. Success is a divine thing that is measured by whether one has achieved the purpose for which they were created. Of course, we could worry just as much over such a goal for life. But there is good news! God seems to have no desire to close this window of opportunity. In fact, God seems to delight in taking no notice of age when raising people up to the success of fulfilling their lives purpose. At times, they are young. At other times, they are old. Quite old. There is Anna, in Luke 2, who was at least 84 years of age before she was able to give witness to the messiah Jesus Christ. Few people realize Moses was somewhere around 80 years of age when God called him to lead His people out of Egypt. Let's just take one other example: Abraham.

Abraham entered into a covenant promise with God early in his life. There were several covenant promises that God made with Abraham, but the result of those promises was one central promise that Abraham's life would result in the blessing of all the families of the earth. Throughout Abraham's life, on six different occasions, God renewed these promises with Abraham. Ultimately, Abraham was 100 years of age before he saw the last of those promises fulfilled by God in the birth of his son Isaac. Sarah, his wife, was about 90. Clearly, God's window does not close on bringing fulfillment and, thus, success to our lives. Come to think of it, that biological clock doesn't mean too much to God, either!

Some thoughts on faith

2008-08-27T17:28:00.008-04:00

Why do we expect so little from our faith? By “we”, I mean the vast majority of humanity. We treat faith like little more than a non-binding, guiding set of principles.

Take for instance, our beloved left coast and the Hollywood scene. People seemingly dance on the winds of the latest religious fad. Faith is worn like an Armani suit or a Gucci handbag. It’s used like a well-placed affair to drum up some publicity.

It’s not that they don’t “believe” in what they are saying. I’m certain some do, but their faith is only essential as long as it is convenient and meets their needs. Now, lest you think I have an extreme disdain for actors, let me point something out. I think this pattern of faith is only apparent in the famous precisely because they are famous. Their lives are lived under the constant scrutiny of their adoring public. The reality often is that their lives are but a microcosm of our own. We all tend to treat faith this way.

We shop at the Walmart of Religion and choose our belief systems like we’re putting together the components of an entertainment system. If we’re conservative we gravitate towards the fundamental. If we’re liberal we lean towards the indulgent. Most are somewhere in between and we choose a mix of components to build the belief system perfectly suited to our needs. We are all guilty of this. I say “guilty”, because as you have certainly figured out by now I find any such notion of faith a sad rendering of the real thing.

Faith should never be a search for what we find palatable, but for the truth of who God is and what God desires. My experience is that this rarely leads to a comfortable faith. The goal is not to find a god who thinks just like me, but for me to think just like God. For me, that means that I fully expect to be pushed, challenged, and admonished as well as encouraged, uplifted, and supported. This is all, of course, easier said than done. We all tend to seek out the places of comfort. So, how do we defend against this very human response?

Ironically, even as I rant about our consumeristic culture and its obsession with choice, I believe one of the keys to finding an authentic, uncompromising faith in God is a greater openness to the many expressions of faith. Let me try to be clear as to why I say this. Given the proclivity of humanity to meet one’s own desires and needs we need to constantly test our faith. I do not mean to suggest that we need to test God. The very nature of who God is, by most every definition, puts God beyond the scope of our testing. However, our understanding, our interpretation of who God is and what it means to believe in him needs to be constantly scrutinized. Otherwise, how are we to discern between what true faith is and what is human projection?

“Well, just read the Book”, you might say. Hmm, yes, yes, but don’t we have a tendency to read it, meaning the Bible, of course, through the very prejudiced lens of our own ideology. We tend to read into it what we want to get out of it. So, how do we overcome that flaw? Well, read the Bible, but read it all and understand that reading the Bible is never a “just read” proposition. Why? Because the true goal is not to read the Book, but to let God read us. We don’t interpret the Bible. Instead, our lives are interpreted in the light of God’s Word. Every conservative should feel the utter conflict of their desire for the clarity of the law with the ambiguity of God’s grace. Every liberal should feel the clash of their emphasis on tolerance with the uncompromising standards of God’s holiness. When we commit ourselves to this struggle and allow God to interpret us rather than satisfying our desire to interpret God, faith is born.

Friendship

2008-08-18T15:09:00.007-04:00

"A man of many companions may come to ruin,
but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."
Proverbs 18:24

You can't make old friends. The truth of those words came to me as I spent time this weekend with one of my best and oldest friends. He and his family came out to Toledo to spend some time with me and mine. It was like a long drink from a familiar and refreshing stream. I felt so blessed by his friendship and the gift of time with him and his family.

In our transient times, it is very difficult to make friendships and old friendships are even more precious and rare. Why? There are a lot of reasons, but consider this. In the 1800's, the average person never traveled more than a 100 miles from their home in their entire lives. Even through the 1950's, 60's, and 70's most people remained in their hometowns to raise their families. Friendships were often maintained over decades and old friends might be those you have had for your entire life. How things have changed. Schools, jobs, and more cause us to move from place to place. Couple that with the relative ease of travel and we create a society in which one is almost reluctant to invest the time and effort to build lasting friendships. Consequently, many people find themselves lonely and hungering for the depth of honesty, commitment, and familiarity that only comes with an old friend. That's why I cherished this weekend so much.

Friendship is one of the great, priceless privileges of life. That's why I am so floored by something Jesus once said. Check it out:

"You are my friends if you do what I command. I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master's business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you to go and bear fruit—fruit that will last. Then the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. This is my command: Love each other." John 15

Jesus says he wants friendship with us. The Savior of the world, the very Son of God, desires to be your friend; and get this. More than anyone else, he will be a friend that sticks closer than a brother. He is a friend unfettered by time or distance or circumstance. With him you can experience unparalleled honesty and commitment. Moreover, there is no one who knows you better. So what must we do to have this friendship? What uncompromising command must we obey? Be a friend to others. That's it. That's what Jesus says. That's what Jesus asks of us in order for him to be our friend. Be a friend to others. Love each other. All he asks us to do is the very thing we so hunger in our lives. Create relationships of love that will last. What an amazing and precious thing friendship is? Yet, how even more friendship with God?

The Kingdom: A place to live or a way of living?

2008-08-13T16:20:00.001-04:00

When we think about the Kingdom of God (or Heaven, take your pick) most of us tend to think of a place. We think of the Kingdom as the destination of our souls after death. The Kingdom is the place where we will spend life in eternity with God. The sensible summary of this is that the Kingdom is the future home of those who live rightly in the present.

Yet, this really was not the way that Jesus spoke of the Kingdom or eternal life. Let’s look quickly at a few passages from the Gospels. Jesus clearly found the Kingdom to be an important issue, since it emerged as the heart of his message right from the very beginning of his ministry. Take a look at Mark 1:14, 15:

4After John was put in prison, Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God. 15"The time has come," he said. "The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!"

For Jesus, the Kingdom was near. Not near as in the near future. If so, he would have said, “The time is coming.” No. He means near as in close by. It has come. In other words, Jesus is telling us that where he is the Kingdom is. Why? Because the Kingdom is not a place. It is not a destination. It is God’s rule, God’s reign, and where Jesus is, God rules. Moreover, we can experience this Kingdom in our lives right now. How? Jesus tells us. Repent and believe. So, it is by faith and obedience that we can experience the rule of God in our lives. In other words, we can experience heaven on earth. Jesus told us to pray for this very thing: “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.”

So what of eternal life? Again we tend to think of eternal life as something we will enter into after death. In reality, the Kingdom and eternal life are but two sides of the same coin. In Jesus teaching, eternal life is closely related to Shalom (i.e. the peace of God).

Shalom, in the biblical sense, means much more than what we typically think of as peace. Shalom means to be complete, perfect, and full. It is what Jesus proclaims for us, when he says, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.” [John 10:10] This life to the fullest is Shalom. This “peace” is life in the Kingdom. It is the experience of the full and complete rule of God in one’s life. This “peace” is the present experience of eternal life.

This can be true, because it is against the very nature of something “eternal” to simply reside in the future. The “eternal” is descriptive of something that always was and always will be. It is without beginning or end. It exists outside of the boundaries of time. When we understand this, we understand that eternal life does not simply describe the state of living forever after death. Eternal life is the experience of the complete and perfect life found by living within the incorruptible and ceaseless peace of God’s rule. This experience is not confined to the future.

Let’s take a look at one last story from Jesus life to illustrate this. In Luke 10:25 Jesus is asked a question: "Teacher," he asked, "what must I do to inherit eternal life?" I think that we tend to think of “inherit” as “earn”. We certainly think of “inherit” as obtaining something after someone’s death. But the Greek word translated as “do” means more than simply “earn” or “obtain”. It means “to bring forth” or “to continually produce”. The word “inherit” is even more interesting. It means to “obtain one’s portion of an inheritance”, but within jewish religious thought the word took on a greater meaning. In the Old Testament, the word was frequently used to describe the taking of possession of the promised land. This was the inheritance of God’s covenant promises with his people. Consequently, over time, the word evoked images of the possession of the holy land crowned with all divine blessings, an experience which Jews were to expect under the Messiah. Hence the word became associated with partaking in or experiencing eternal life in the Messiah’s Kingdom. So, what the man is asking Jesus is, “How do I bring forth and continually experience the blessings of my promised inheritance of eternal life?”

This is important to understand, because the man is not asking “how do I get to heaven?” In fact, such a question would be fairly nonsensical for a Jew. Heaven is understood in ancient Judaism as the domain of God, not humans. What this man wants to know is “How do I experience the Kingdom life?” When you understand that, you understand that Jesus’ reply does not imply that good works earn your way into heaven. What Jesus’ is saying is this: Acts of love are the truest expression of the eternal life. When we love God and love others we bring forth the Kingdom of God and God’s peace- the full and perfect life- breaks into our broken and imperfect world.

So don’t be satisfied with this life. Don’t wait to experience the fullness of eternal life. Live life to the fullest now. Live the Kingdom life. Love God, love people and experience the breakthrough Shalom, the Kingdom, of Eternal life today!

What do you believe?

2008-07-28T09:33:00.004-04:00

There is one regret I have in my life. That I did not believe in God sooner. The irony of that is that I have believed in God as long as I can remember. I have had faith in Jesus Christ all of my cognizant life. In preschool, my parents were told I would become a pastor. So what is this regret?

I did believe in God, but my "god" was way too small. Why? I allowed the world to determine my depth of faith in God. When I was young, I read the Bible and I believed it. By this, I don't speak of the creation narratives or whether Jonah was actually swallowed by a fish. In fact, it really amazes me how people can get hung up arguing one way or the other about such things and miss the truly important things that are revealed to us in the Bible. Namely, that God is real. He is powerful, loving, and mysterious. AND He chooses to be actively involved in our lives.

God is neither passive nor impotent (meaning "without power" people). He sends angels. He heals the sick. He raises the dead. He gives people words of prophecy. The list really goes on and on.

I really believed that when I was young. Over time, that belief waned. I lacked confidence in the power of God. Now here is the interesting thing about that. This did not happen because God failed to show himself. Over the course of my life, I have seen God act in power in the lives of people. I have seen and experienced miracles.

However, so many people choose to ignore such things. They are convinced that God is distant, uninvolved, powerless. Yes, of course, there are many people without any faith who believe this way. But the startling reality is that there are an overwhelming number of people who are Christians whose lives reflect such a belief. This way of thinking is so prevalent that it effectively underminds the faith of those who believe in the power and presence of our God. It did so for me. And that's has been the regret of my life.

Until now. God has thankfully renewed that belief in my life. He did that by putting strong people of faith in my life and revealing the truth to me through his word. I don't just believe in a god. I don't even just simply believe in God. I believe in the God of the Bible. I believe in the God of power and might. I believe in the God who heals the sick and gives sight to the blind. I believe in the God who so loved us that he sent his Son, Jesus the Christ. I believe that Christ revealed to us the grace, love and power of His Father in heaven. I believe that before Jesus ascended to his Father, he sent the Holy Spirit to live with and in every follower. I believe that by the Holy Spirit, God still acts with power in and through the lives of those who put their faith in Him. What do you believe?

Sick

2008-07-16T15:58:00.002-04:00

That's what I am. Sick. So for those of you who bless me by reading this blog, I'm sorry. My sinuses are pounding so hard that nothing worth saying seems to come to mind. Of course, I do understand that blogging historically has little to do with having something worth saying. In that, I mean that the beauty of blogging is that it is accessible to all. It is not reserved for the literary elite or the talented communicator. Anyone can share their thoughts, dreams, fears, joys, beliefs, opinions, prejudices. Then the public can decide whether its worthy to read. In this sense, blogs have the possibility to contain more authenticity and cultural relativity than any other piece of writing.

Then again, a lot of it, like this blog, is just junk. lol.

Believe first, doubt later

2008-06-30T09:38:00.005-04:00

Choose to believe, rather than to doubt. This is a simple, but difficult way to live. Understand, I clearly believe in God. I have faith in Jesus Christ. Where this principle gets tested is in the nuances of the life of discipleship. Do I believe that God speaks to me? Do I believe that God heals? Do I believe that God actually loves and cares for me so much that he "knows the numbers of the hairs" on my head? Do I believe Jesus when he says, "anyone who has faith in me will do what I have been doing. He will do even greater things than these"?

If I'm honest with myself, my first inclination with any of these is to doubt. Understand, doubt can be a healthy thing. God created us with intelligence. It is healthy and often wise to question before blindly accepting. It is not God's intent that we mind numbingly attribute every action, every consequence of an action, every happenstance to God. I get it. We shouldn't have to dumb ourselves down in order to believe. However, if our initial stance is always to doubt, we run a great risk. We may eliminate any possibility that God is working in our lives. We write off an answer to prayer as a product of coincidence. We dismiss the words of someone claiming to receive a prophecy as the conscious imaginings of subconscious impulses. Worst of all we move through life expecting that God is really quite inactive and uninterested in our lives from day to day.

Here's the thing. That mode of living is completely incongruous with what we learn of God in the Bible. The apostles lived with the absolute expectancy that God was, is, and always will be working right in the midst of the lives of His people. Yes, sometimes that did mean that God was working through unseen channels in subtle pushes and pulls. But, often God was a lot less obscure than that. Often, God was downright brazen in His insertions into the lives of His followers. People were healed. Prophecies were given. The dead were raised. We're told in the Book of Acts from the Bible again and again how many, many miraculous signs and wonders were done through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Yet, so often we seem to believe that God can't or won't do these things now. However, entertaining such thoughts carries with them some devastating results in our ability to have faith in God. If we believe God can't, we undermine his authority. God is the creator of all, the king of the universe. To suggest that there is something that "lords" itself over God, that he has no power to overcome, is to make him something less than God. If we say that God won't, we undermine God's character. God calls us to see Him as our Father in heaven who wants all good things for his children. To suggest that God will not act in our lives is to characterize God as uncaring, distant, even callous. He becomes more a resentful judge than a loving Dad. Either path, believing God can't or God won't, leads to some difficult conclusions.

So, what choice are we left with? Believe. Have faith. Dare to err on the side of anticipating, expecting God to be brazenly involved in your life, rather than cautiously erring on the side of seeing God in little or, as it often happens, in nothing. Believe first and doubt later. Yes, sometime you will be wrong. That dream you thought was from God really was just the pizza you had the night before. But, sometime you will be right and that makes the risk worth it. Why? Because in the end this is not just some theorem, this is not merely a science experiment or a philosophy to be tested. This is God and the very nature of having faith in God means that we believe he is bigger, more important, and more real than our doubt.

Time of Abiding

2008-06-17T10:05:00.004-04:00

Patience, patience. Ah, it is something I so lack in my life. Yet, I know it is necessary for our spiritual growth. We, particularly Americans, want to do, do, do. Moreover, we want results. Now. But Jesus Christ teaches us that "being" is as important as "doing." So how do we learn to "be" disciples? We spend time abiding or remaining in him.

That's what Jesus tells his disciples in the Gospel according to John, the 15th chapter (I've pasted the relevant verses from John 15 at the end of this blog). Jesus says, "I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing." To understand what Jesus means we need to understand a little about vinedressing or, in other words, the maintenance and care of the plants within a vineyard. Pruning or cutting back the branches is an essential piece in producing tastier and more abundant fruit. Without pruning, the branch will weaken. Eventually, it will wither under the strain of its production and die.

However, when a branch is pruned back something significant happens. The vine protectively grows over the pruned branch encapsulating it within itself. Thus, the branch remains or abides in the vine. There it gains in strength and when it emerges it is stronger and able to bear more and better fruit.

The danger of "doing" all the time is to believe that we are capable of producing anything of value apart from Christ, our Vine. If you don't spend time with Him, we will never produce the fruit that God wants us to produce in our lives. We need to understand, as the apostle Paul often said, that our lives are in Christ. If they're not, then we are detached from the source of life and we will never realize the strength that is found in Him.

Still, how do we remain or abide in Him. Jesus also gives us the answer to this when he says "abide in my love." We need to let the love of Jesus Christ cover us. We need to receive and soak in the grace of God. Spend time with Jesus in prayer. Read his words. Listen to what he has to say to you. Sometimes, just rest in Him. Do nothing but invite him to join you and let His presence, His love refresh you. Jesus wants us to experience life in the Vine, life in Christ. Why? Well, listen to what he says: "I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete."

Do you want to have a fruitful life, a life that is productive? Do you want the "doing" of your life to have meaning? Then first learn how to "be".

That is the lesson we are learning right now at "10:35. " The last year has really focused on what God is doing inside of us. We've focused on "being" disciples, rather than doing. We have definitely seen some pruning during this time. But, patience. The branch is growing strong and the fruit will come.

John 15

The Vine and the Branches

1"I am the true vine, and my Father is the gardener. 2He cuts off every branch in me that bears no fruit, while every branch that does bear fruit he prunes^[a] so that it will be even more fruitful. 3You are already clean because of the word I have spoken to you. 4Remain in me, and I will remain in you. No branch can bear fruit by itself; it must remain in the vine. Neither can you bear fruit unless you remain in me.

5"I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing. 6If anyone does not remain in me, he is like a branch that is thrown away and withers; such branches are picked up, thrown into the fire and burned. 7If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be given you. 8This is to my Father's glory, that you bear much fruit, showing yourselves to be my disciples.

9"As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love. 10If you obey my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have obeyed my Father's commands and remain in his love. 11I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.

Time to "go"

2008-06-14T01:36:00.002-04:00

I'm waiting for the van to take me to the airport. I look back and so much has happened. I've learned so much. I've received so much affirmation for who I am and what God is calling me to. Now, the end has come to this week and it is time to go. I'm saddened in many ways, but I am excited to go.

I am, of course, excited to go and see my family. I have missed them immensely this year. But I am also excited to "go" in ministry. God has given me the apostolic gift and the missional heart. I am ready to go! Look out Toledo here I come. I'm ready to venture out in the deep water. I'm gonna swim!

Only God could know...

2008-06-13T17:39:00.004-04:00

Imagine someone telling you something that spoke so powerfully to the deepest longings of your heart that you could not help but weep at the sheer sound of those words. That's what happened to me last night. I couldn't even bring myself to write about it at that time. It was too personal and emotionally charged. But now I can share it with you.

I know even as I share them that you that the reader cannot possibly understand the depth to which I was moved by what happened. The words may sound meaningful, inspiring perhaps. But, for me, it was as if God reached into my heart to pluck from it the words that make it beat. Here's what happened.

On Thursday afternoon, a time for prayer was offered for anyone who wished to come forward. I did so. As I waited for someone to come up to me to pray over me, I prayed for those around me. I worshipped God and praised Him for the work He was doing in the lives of so many people this week. After some time, I was prayed over and annointed with oil at which time I returned to my seat. I continued to worship God with unhindered joy when suddenly Mic Woodhead, lead pastor of St. Tom's- Crookes, walked across the room straight towards me. He laid hands on me and said, "Tom, God has just given me a word for you." What follows are the words. Words that are perhaps no more than mere words to most. But, to me, were like the songs of God's angels to the ears of man.

"God has given to me an image of you standing in the shallows, water up to your ankles. You are splashing around in the shallows and God says, 'I love you and I love the work that you've done for me, but it is time to come deeper.' God is now leading you out of the shallows. The water is rising and soon your feet can know longer touch the bottom. You find yourself swimming. Your swimming, Tom! And the joy of the Lord is filling you as you swim in the breadth and depth of what he as planned for you. God has so much more planned for you, Tom. It's time to trust and to walk out into the deep waters and swim. And, Tom, I see another picture, a picture of you standing at the gates of heaven. And people, many people, are queued up to greet you, to shake your hand, to embrace you. And one by one they tell you, 'Thank you, it is because of you that I am here.' Many, many lives are being touched and changed because of you- a person you've talked to. A person you've helped bring into the Kingdom who then touched another life. And God is happy, Tom! He loves you. He rejoices in what you have done and will do for Him. It is not the big church or ministry that you will ever lead, but the lives that you have touched and made a difference in. And God is pleased."

About midway through, I began to weep. What followed was 30 minutes of uncontrollable sobbing- shoulder heaving, face hiding tears of joy.

I sought Mic out after the service. He asked me if I was okay. I told him very, but he needed to know how much those words meant to me. "You see," I said, "there is no way you could have known this, but I can't swim. I have always wanted to, but I can't. I can't think of an image that would have spoke more powerfully to me about what God wants to do in my life." And Mic began to laugh... out loud, head tilted back... like I have never heard him laugh before. "That is so the humor of God! That was a word from Him, Tom. A word from God for You!"

"Every time I think about it," I said, "Everytime I think about everything you said... there is nothing more, nothing greater I could have wanted to hear. No words could have had more meaning. I can't stop crying everytime I think about them. I just wanted to hug you when you said them."

Then Mic, still laughing, through his arms around me and said, "Then cry, Tom! Keep crying. Don't stop. Those words are going to come true. They're going to happen!" And I did. I kept crying, laughing, and crying some more. I suppose I will keep crying every time I think about them. No one could know what those words would me to me except me... and God!

Battery Power

2008-06-11T18:20:00.000-04:00

I’m going to keep it short tonight. Today was an awesome day for me spiritually. This week has been everything I have hoped for and more. It is not that I am learning some radically different things than last year. Though we did hear some challenging teaching today from Paul Maconochie on Spiritual Warfare. It is, rather, the growth that God is producing in me. It is the time spent in worship and prayer. It is the encouragement and grace that accompanies this ministry and the people involved in it. It is more than just feeling recharged. It is though the Holy Spirit battery within me has been changed from a AAA to a D. My capacity for the Holy Spirit has increased and thus so has the power of the Holy Spirit in my life. Praise be to God!

Pioneering Mission

2008-06-10T18:50:00.002-04:00

This was the day I was hoping for since the flight over. Having balked at God’s leading to pray for the woman on the flight over, I was praying for an opportunity to be pressed well outside my comfort zone. This day we signed up for different experiences of “out” ministry. I intentionally sought one that would cause me to surrender and trust in our awesome God.

What I signed up for was an experience called “pioneering mission” with Toby Bassford. Toby is an incredibly gifted young adult leader with a huge heart for reaching people with the good news of Jesus Christ. This opportunity would involve going down to the town center two-by-two and allowing God to lead us to approach someone to share a word from God, pray for healing or any other needs, or share good news of God’s grace and love for people.

However, even before doing that, we spent five minutes in silent prayer asking the Holy Spirit to reveal to us a word or picture concerning the people He would have us meet. Toby said to pay attention to anything that comes to mind. This is important, because when doing this we have two choices. We can either discount those things as random thoughts or self-produced ideas, and therefore, we eliminate the possibility that anything has come from God. Or we can decide to believe that God does and is speaking to us, creating an environment that is open to receiving a word from God. So, trust, seek to be obedient, and share whatever comes to mind.

For me, there were two words. The first was Sussex. The second was dame or damsel. We determined there was a Sussex Street near town center where we were headed. No one had any good ideas about the second. So, I set off with a young guy named John who had just finished FORM. He thought he had an idea where Sussex Street was located. Two miles later we were still looking with no idea whom God was leading us to. We prayed together as we walked, asking God for His guidance.

At one point, we passed a man on a bridge. I thought, perhaps, that God wanted us to talk to him. Furthermore, we had asked a number of people about the location of Sussex Street to no avail. Perhaps one more would be the trick. So, I said, “Sir, do you happen to know where Sussex Street is?”

He said, “Perhaps, if you tell me what you are looking for I can help.”

I said, “Well, that’s an interesting thing. We’re both Christians and a little bit ago I was praying and I believe God wants me to go to Sussex Street and pray for someone.”

He got a rather quizzical look on hi s face and said, “Well, I think if you cross the bridge, you’ll find Sussex on the other side.” With a bit of humor in your voice he added, “I hope ya find’m.”
Feeling a little bolder (heck, he already thought I was crazy at this point) I asked, “There isn’t by chance something that you would like us to pray about?”

“No, I’m good,” he said a little nervously. “Unless you could get me a windfall of some cash. I could really use some time away from my work.” A little laughter. “But, naw, that’s alright.”

I felt like pressing the prayer at this point would be wrong, but I did say, “We really do pray God’s blessing on your life. Thank you for helping us find our destination.”

As we walked away, John prayed, “ Jesus, supernaturally relieve this man of some of the pressures at work. And may it happen in such a way that he would remember this encounter and be drawn closer to you.”

Sussex Street was across the bridge. But, he was our only encounter. Was this the person God wanted us to find? We may never know. But as Toby shared at the beginning of our little four mile trek, the point of this exercise is not to have some evangelistic success story. The point is to be obedient. Walk in obedience. Live life more consciously in a state of obedience. Go where God says to go. Talk to those whom he leads you to talk to. Pray for others. Believe, trust, obey and leave the rest up to God. This day, John and I did that and we trust God to do the rest. What an awesome experience!

First Prophecy of the Week

2008-06-09T18:36:00.001-04:00

Each year, before we come to Sheffield, some of their people with the prophetic gift pray over the names of those coming to Pilgrimage (that’s what the week is called). If someone receives a word for that person they are to write it down. We are then given these prophecies at the start of the week with the understanding that they may mean nothing to us or they may be spot on (a little british speak for you there). Mind you, they don’t have anything other than a name. Well, here is mine. Judge for yourself.

“Picture of you as the Shepherd who leaves the 99 sheep to seek and to save the 1. Sense of you having a calling to those ‘on the edge’, those who don’t ‘git’ standard church. God shares the desire of your heart and will equip and enable you.”

An awesome start

2008-06-09T18:02:00.002-04:00

Today was the first day of the conference and it has already been quite powerful. Mike Breen began the day with a devotion on Covenant and Kingdom. It was a review of teaching I have heard Mike give before, but still very good.

What followed was my first breakout in track 2 (at least one year of experience with lifeshapes) covering the Triangle. This was led by Steve Cochram of 3D ministries. It was extremely engaging. Of particular interest to me, was how to use the up:in:out of the Triangle as a diagnostic tool for the church. When using the shape in this way you address the areas of vision, teamwork, and task. Some of you will be hearing more about this!

The next teaching time was offered by Mic Woodhead and dealt also with Covenant and Kingdom. However, this material was very fresh, very challenging and very powerful. We examined the 4 truths of Covenant and the 4 truths of Kingdom. It is far too much for me to cover right now, but in short Covenant deals with who you are (your identity) and Kingdom deals with what you do (your purpose).

At lunch, I met with Steve Cochram whom I had begun a conversation with via email before even coming to Sheffield. We had a lively and wonderful conversation about the implications of implimenting these teachings within the church. Lunch was over before we knew it and I had received a bonus time of instruction to boot.

Challenges and Blessings

2008-06-08T17:13:00.004-04:00

So, I found out a couple days before coming that my host family was going to be gone for the weekend. They lead a young adult ministry called Form and this weekend was their year-end retreat. I was excited to be staying with them because of their involvement in this ministry, but I was also a little disappointed that they were going to be gone for the weekend. Last year, this first weekend was an incredible opportunity to get to know the family I was with and to take part in the life of the church through and with them.

Well, Mic Woodhead, lead pastor at St. Thomas, Crookes, discovered that I was without a host family this weekend. So, he invited me and Paul (the other pastor from St. Paul's) to spend all day Saturday with him, his family, and Kent Hunter. This was an incredible opportunity to learn from one of the key leaders in Sheffield one on one. It was an awesome day.

As a result of this time, Mic offered to have 10:35 act as a pilot site for a new ministry they are developing. It is a pre-Alpha program that is intended to be used in coffee shops and pubs (B-dubs?) to engage people in conversations about faith. The three main areas of discussion will be career, relationships, and the future. It will be a dvd format with an opening discussion starter that can be played on your laptop. It is still in production, but they hope to have it done around the first of the year.

Today, Sunday, we attended the family service at St. Thomas, Philly and the evening Become service geared towards the significant college population, also at Philly. The family service was really amazing. As it began, children danced and played freely throughout the worship space. More than tolerated, it was encouraged. They waved flags and danced in circles. They leapt for joy and laughed and played. It made me cry. So pure their worship seemed. Unfortunately, after the opening set of music they were released for Children's Ministry. I was truly sad to see them go.

The evening worship was held in a slightly smaller venue. The seating was about 100 chairs- 50 to either side. The rest of the space was filled with pillows and sofas. Though not much sitting occurs during this service anyways. The worship of these young adults was as nearly exhuberant as that of the children. Dancing and singing. Faces filled with the joy of the Lord. The Holy Spirit was, no doubt, dancing about the room from person to person.

Paul M. (sorry, can't spell his last name right now), lead pastor at St. Thomas, Philly, gave the message at both of these services. He gave two excellent messages based on Scripture from the books of Joshua and Acts. The first was on living within the covenant promises of God. The second on accepting and owning the call of God on our lives.

Tomorrow, the actual conference starts. I'm already aware of some powerful opportunities we will be given to stretch ourselves and grow in faith. You will be sure to hear about them. Out for now.
-Tom

Manchester today, Sheffield tomorrow

2008-06-05T11:31:00.002-04:00

I'm typing from the gratis hotel web access. The flight was good, yet I believe God was already trying to teach me. Here's what happened.

During the flight I was working on a message I will be giving the first week in August. The series is entitled Summer On The Beach and is about the encounters that the disciples had with Jesus along the shores of the Sea of Galilee that challenged them to follow Jesus ever more closely. This first message in the series will deal with the reality that Jesus did not call his disciples to "believe" in certain theological principles or "act" in accordance with certain behaviors and laws. He simply said, "Follow me!" "Following" is the simplest action of a disciple. It is also the greatest action of a disciple. There is no truer sign of commitment than to follow- wherever Christ may lead.

Having said that, I fell a sleep for a little while on the trip from Detroit to Amsterdam (my first flight before connecting to Manchester). Suddenly, I was awaken with a thought-- "Pray for the woman two seats to my left. Pray for her sinuses." So, I did. When I looked over, I saw that she indeed was having some kind of problem. But, instantly I knew that simply praying wasn't what the Holy Spirit meant. I was supposed to tell her that God told me to pray for her. I was supposed to pray with her.

Let me tell you, I knew this is what Christ wanted me to do. He was saying to me, "This is the depth of followership that I am looking for. Are you ready to do this? Are you ready to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit? If so, I will lead you to places you have not been and cannot get to without following me."

I was not. That's right. No big discipleship success story here. For reasons I can't even explain, I just couldn't bring myself to do it. It was such a struggle as I'm sure Christ knew it would be. I have so much growing to do yet and so much more I can give to Christ. Afterall, He asks for no less than all of me. He does not have that yet. So, I ask Christ's forgiveness and I ask for your prayers. Pray that I would die to self so I can live for Christ. Pray that I would be able to follow wherever he may lead. Pray, as I do, that this is just the first of many such opportunities on this trip.

Well, it looks as though I will not have access to the web until Sunday night. So, it appears that it will be Sunday or Monday until you hear from me again. However, I should be able to blog each day after that. Based upon what has happened already, I know I will have a lot to share.

My daughter, the Presbyterian

2008-06-02T10:27:00.002-04:00

So, my sixteen year old daughter and I go out to dinner together nearly every week. It's a very cool thing. Most of the time we talk about "stuff", nothing significant. Once in a while we'll talk about something deep or important to one of us. Sometimes I think she says things just to see what kind of reaction she can get out of me.

The other day she says, "Dad, I've decided I'm a Presbyterian." Now, I have been a pastor ordained into the Lutheran church for nineteen years. Additionally, as far as I know, Anna has never stepped into a Presbyterian church. Nevertheless, there she sat with that defiant, yet whimsical, smile on her face proclaiming her new allegiance. Mind you, this is the same girl who insisted that "10:35" was a non-denominational church no matter who the pastor (her father) was. She wouldn't believe it, but I really do love this about her. She thinks of me as pretty conservative, but pushing the boundaries of convention is something I've been accused of on more than one occasion. So, I smiled and asked her what led her to this new revelation.

The issue was Calvinistic predestination. She had recently learned about it (really, the things they teach in public school nowadays) and decided it made a lot of sense. What ensued was this wonderfully deep and complicated discussion on the merits of predestination as taught by Calvin, Luther, and others.

That interaction I had with my daughter is a model for me of the kinds of conversations I want to have with all people and how I should seek to respond to those who have viewpoints that differ from mine. Here's what I mean. The foundation of this whole conversation with my daughter was my love for her. I'm emotionally invested in her. So, I want to encourage her to think through the things of God. I want to challenge her, but I also want to listen to her. I want her to know that I value her opinion as I value her. I celebrate her spiritual inquisitiveness, knowing that Christ can use it to draw her closer to Him. She matters to me. I can question her stance, but I don't want to judge her. I can push her to think more deeply, but I don't want to push her away.

I contrast that with the many stories I hear from people who have felt judged and belittled by Christians. Just recently, I met with someone who shared with me some of her recent experiences with Christians. She is a deeply spiritual person who has been disconnected from the church for some time. She has a sincere faith in Jesus, but is highly inquisitive. She has read The Secret, though it seemed a bit indulgent to her, and thinks Eckhart Tolle is right on with some of his stuff, but not all. She also has a deep appreciation and love for nature. She can look at a handfull of soil and see the handiwork of God. So, what did those Christians closest to her have to say about all of this. They called her a wiccan and a pagan. They disrespected her beliefs, but much more importantly, they disrespected her. There was no love in their dealings with her. What she felt was their contempt or, even worse, pity.

Through some caring Christ-followers, God is now calling her closer to Him. But, what a tragedy this experience almost was. What a loss for the Kingdom. Why? Because too often Christians forget what Christ proclaimed as the greatest commandment: "'Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind' ; and, 'Love your neighbor as yourself.'"

Yay Holiday Weekends!

2008-05-27T15:32:00.002-04:00

What an awesome weekend! Finally it felt like Spring. The weather was beautiful. My whole family is home (oldest daughter has returned from college) and my sister was in for a visit. We ate, drank, played card games, watched a couple of movies on video, and were just generally carefree and laid back.

For the record, "Dan in Real Life" was BORING. It wasn't even a good chick flick. Predictable. Guy falls in love with girl he can't have. Bad things happen. All seems lost. Guy gets girl. Hooray. Everyone's happy. Blah! I don't think there was a single laugh out loud moment in this movie that starred two of the funniest people alive- Dane Cook and Steve Carell.

The second film we watched was "Transformers." At least things blow up in that movie. Still, nothing could dampen a weekend of sheer relaxation and good company. I hope everyone had such a great weekend.

I'm tired of going to church!

2008-05-19T10:43:00.006-04:00

Yeah, that's right. That's not a typo. I'm tired of going to church.

Now you know there has to be a catch. After all, I'm a pastor! Time for a career change if I hate the church. Ah, well there is the conundrum. I don't hate the Church. I love the Church. Always have. Even in those times when, well, the church has been less than loveable. I can never imagine that changing. It's the call that God has given me.

However, I am tired of going to church. Why? The whole notion of Church being something I can go to and leave is a complete misunderstanding of the Church that God established and that we read about in the Bible. The Church IS the called and gathered people of God. It is our identity. You can no more go to Church than you can go to Smith or Schaeffer or [insert your last name here]. My name is part of my identity. It marks me as belonging to a family. The family can, for sure, gather, but I don't cease being a part of that family when we are not together. I am a Schaeffer. Similarly, the idea of going to Church is nonsensical. I am, we are, the Church.

That is an important mental shift to make. To think of Church as a place you can go to is to fail to see it as identity. You can go to Boy Scouts. You can go to the country club. You can go to the "Y". We hold membership in these things. We may feel a kindred relationship with others who are members. We may even feel that they are a part of our identity, but they do not define us. They are not the whole of who we are. To be Church is to know that this identity cannot be compartmentalized into some tidy corner of our lives. To be Church is to live knowing that one's relationship with God invades every area of our lives. I am, we are, the Church. Apart from this, I cannot be known.

Yet, so many of us, myself included more often than I care to admit, slip Church into that neat and safe category of something we are members of. We compartmentalize it. We come and go from the Church as we please. If we're really religious, that means once a week. I cannot help but believe that Jesus himself weeps over a Church that has become so institutionalized.

So, I am tired of going to church. I am grief-stricken at the notion of the Church seeing itself as going to church. I want to be the Church. I want the Church to be the Church. I want to see the transformation that would take place within the Church and the power for good, for love, for hope that would cascade out into the world like a spiritual tsunami if the Church embraced its identity. I am, we are, the Church.

Catch up!

2008-05-13T10:16:00.003-04:00

So, it's been a little hectic lately. Consequently, I didn't even look at my blog last week. Now I'm playing a little catch up with everything. Nevertheless, better busy than boring is what I say.

Busy it has been. But, it has also been productive. Over the course of the last two weeks we have hired an administrative assistant, flown in and intensely interviewed two prospective Directors of Student Ministries, and continued to make plans for a total overhaul of our governing structure for the entire ministry.

I must confess, I love when ministry is like this. It simply does not allow you to play it safe and stay in the comfort zone. I don't think Jesus ever did that. Sure, he rested as we all need to, but even his rest was simply recharging for the next step in the journey.

Well, like I said, I'm playing catch-up. So, I'm out for now. Later.

Road-maps

2008-04-28T11:46:00.001-04:00

I don't think my oldest daughter reads this blog. Good thing, because she really hates hearing what I'm about to say. She has one of the absolutely worst senses of direction I've ever seen in a person. The girl doesn't have a clue. My wife and I better have our cell phones handy when she is traveling, because she is liable to end up a state away in the opposite direction from where she was headed.

Part of the problem is that this extremely intelligent young woman who graduated in the top of her High School class can't seem to grasp the fundamental workings of a road-map. This flat piece of paper doesn't translate into actual geography and location for her. That's critical, because if you don't know where you are, it's pretty tough to get to where you are going. You can't plot a course for the journey if you don't know the starting point.

That bit of road-map wisdom is true for any journey a person may be on. The very first step in getting to where you want to be is to understand and plot out from whence you start. This is an often overlooked step that causes many of us to walk without direction into an uncertain pursuit of our goals. It would be akin to me blindfolding you, dropping you in the middle of the proverbial "nowhere" and telling you to find your way to "somewhere". To launch out in a direction without first determining your current location would be foolish. The first order of business is to discover where you are.

Where you are determines HOW you are going to get there. Consider, you and I can have identical goals, but the paths we take to achieve them will, in all probability, be very different. Why? Simply, we are beginning in different places. So, what are the initial and necessary steps one should take before stepping out in pursuit of a preferred future?

The first step is to observe. For our purposes, observation is the gathering of facts. Where are you? Who is with you? How did you get here? Your first step is to have a very clear, objective picture of your current location. You want to be as clinical and honest with yourself as you can be. This honesty in observation allows you to most accurately plot the starting point for your journey. Think of plugging in a location on googlemaps. You can start with a country, then, perhaps, a state. Eventually, you enter a street name, an address or, if you want to be extremely precise, enter the exact longitude and latitude or your location. Bottom line, the more information you provide about your location the more accurate your starting point will be. The more accurate the starting point is the clearer your directions will be to your destination.

However, for our journey raw data is not enough. There are intangibles that affect our starting point. That's why we need to do more than simply observe. We need to reflect. Why am I where I am? What's my current state of mind? How did my former decisions influence my current disposition? While observation was concerned with the objective environmental facts, reflection is concerned with the subjective internal conditions. What you are trying to determine is how prepared you are and, thus, how you must prepare yourself for the journey. This is notoriously difficult to do. It's akin to sketching a portrait of yourself without a mirror. It's difficult to accurately see ourselves without the help of a tool for reflection. We need something or, in this case, someone to act as our mirror.

We need to discuss our situation to gain greater insight and a more accurate picture of who and where we are. That's our third step: discussion. Before setting out in pursuit of your goals garner the insight and advice of someone you trust and whose acuity you respect. A trusted and wise friend provides clarity in viewing ourselves that we may not otherwise achieve. This person needs to have your permission to speak truth and the courage to do it. Their task is to help you see through the fog of your own self-perception. No one can provide this kind of self-awareness more than God. He is the one who knows you better than any other. He formed you. He thought you up and then brought you into being. Part of your discussion should undoubtedly be prayer. Pray for self-revelation. Ask God to reveal how He sees you. Then be ready to be challenged and changed.

Once you have taken these steps you are prepared for the next phase of your journey. No, you are not yet ready to venture out and take your first step. You would still be premature. However, now fully understanding where you are and assuming you have taken equal diligence in deciding where you are to go, you are now ready to plan a successful journey. You can intelligently map out your direction. You can assure that you have everything you need for the trip. You can have the confidence that your are mentally, physically, and spiritually prepared. So, remember. Before you can get to where you're going, you have to know where you are.

Back to St. Tom's

2008-04-22T00:02:00.003-04:00

So, it is only about a month and a half before I head back to Sheffield, England. Last year, this was one of the most transformational events in all my years of ministry. It's difficult for me to really explain what happen while I was there. I can only think of the words of John the Baptist when he said of Jesus, "He must increase, but I must decrease." That's what began to happen in Sheffield.

I still cling to self, but I have surrendered much. I pray that God continues that work of claiming more and more of me for His good pleasure. May God do with me what he will and may St. Tom's in Sheffield once again be His catalyst for that work in my life.

So, what's God up to now?

2008-04-14T23:02:00.000-04:00

That question could be the name of my memoirs if I ever wrote them. The ride I've taken thus far as a follower of Jesus Christ has been amazing. When I decided to go into ordained ministry as a freshman in high school, I prayed, "Lord, make me a pastor in interesting times. I don't want to see your Church stuck, either unable or unwilling to move forward."

Little did I know that prayer was really about me. I was the one who would be challenged with being "stuck". I was the one in danger of either being unable or unwilling to move forward.

Having grown up in east coast Lutheranism, a highly liturgical brand of mainline Christianity that seemed determined keep its eyes in the past and walk backward into the future, the rapidly changing world in which I was called to minister became a completely unknown and foreign land. As a dear friend of mine said in about our fifth year of ministry, "The Church we were prepared to lead, no longer exists."

He was absolutely correct. In seminary, I was taught to be the theologian loci for the parish church. The problem that emerged was the move from modernism to post-modernism. The resulting turmoil within our culture and within a church that was either unable or unwilling to adapt meant that the parish church was vanishing. I was now firmly planted in a mission field and I would have to learn how to be a missionary to a post-modern world or be left staring into the past, indeed becoming a relic of the past myself. So throughout my ministry, God kept prodding and pushing me to let go of the moorings of the past and follow him. How many times have I found myself asking that question, "God, what are you up to now?" God had indeed answered my prayer. These were interesting times.

And how I thank God for answering that prayer! As I look forward, I am so excited about what I see in the future for the Church, for Christ-followers. God is and always will be relevant. Only the Church is in danger of becoming irrelevant, but what a shame that would be because for those who will dare to step out and follow where Christ walks the journey will be amazing.

For me it has been and will continue to be that. Now I see my past from a different perspective. It was preparation for the present. It is my point of origin and your point of origin determines how you will travel to your destination. Perhaps, I'll talk more about that another time.

Come Holy Spirit, Come!

2008-04-07T10:34:00.000-04:00

Why are so many of us satisfied with a life that is mundane? I am reading through the book of Acts and I am floored by the kind of life lived by the apostles. They lived, man! There was no governor on the power that fueled them. Life was lived wide-open.

I want that kind of life. I want to experience a Christianity like that in Acts 2 when it says, "everyone was filled with awe." They couldn't believe what God was doing in and through them. But, they embraced it. They basked in it. They were immersed in this life. That's what it means to be "filled with" or to "be baptized in" the Holy Spirit. Life runs best on the perfect mixture of fuel and air, Word and Spirit.

Even now, that's what I see happening in my life. I'm studying the Word of God and the life of the early Christ-followers empowered by the Holy Spirit. As I do, I open myself up more to the Holy Spirit to empower me. Fuel and air. I just want to keep throttling it up, studying God's Word, praying "Come, Holy Spirit, Come!" Then I want to take this high-octane life called Christianity out on the road and really open 'er up! Forget the mundane. Forget the boring. The predictable. Let's live!

Living on the Edge

2008-03-31T10:22:00.000-04:00

So, we are launching this new series at 10:35 based on the book of Acts in the Bible. The series is called Living on the Edge and it examines how God worked through ordinary people to move Christianity beyond the boundaries of merely being a sect within Judaism to being a worldwide movement of Christ-followers. The more I prepare for this series, the more excited about it I get. God has definitely been working on us at 10:35 to move away from being a "church of attraction" to being a missional church.

God's intended purpose for the Church is for it to go to the world with the good news of the Kingdom of God. However, many churches are stuck in a mindset determined to get people to come to church. This is the mindset of an institution, not a movement. This is a mindset that sees the church as brick and mortar, not the living Body of Christ.

This vision of the Church as an organic, missional movement is at the very heart of the book of Acts. As we move through this book over the next 6 weeks, I believe God is going to really open our eyes concerning what He wants for the Church and what He wants for 10:35. This is going to be exciting stuff!