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Shaken, not Stirred
The day the world changed for me was like any other. I was eleven, riding alone with my dad in our Pontiac Bonneville 2-door. We were on our way to the barber on a sunny Wisconsin saturday afternoon in 1969. Dad parked downtown, turned the key, and the engine went silent. Then, looking straight ahead at the parked vehicle in front of us, he said these few words: “Your mother is leaving.”
I was only a child, but I could hear the pain in his voice. I do not blame my Mom or my Dad. I learned over time that both of them were just kids that grew up and had kids. They divorced. At the time, it felt like the end of the world.
The world around us is changing. Change often comes suddenly, like a gut-check. For many, change comes when a loved one dies unexpectedly. For others, it’s the loss of a job, changing a home town or school.
Change can shake us to the core, making us feel powerless, wondering if anything will ever return to normal. There’s something change does NOT do, however. Change cannot necessarily rouse us from our slumber or cause us to grow up out of our immaturity.
Yes, we all face dramatic personal shakings. However, too many continue to live in denial, never changing themselves. They live as though somehow everything is going to get better, like it was before, if they just hope for it. Or they spend their lives blaming others, think OccupyWallStreet, and seeking a way to hang their troubles, like a Scarlet Letter, on someone else.
The shakings that happen in life will not necessarily change you, unless you allow yourself to be stirred deeply at the core of your being. Change, real change, is not what happens TO us, it is what happens when we choose to do FOR others.
Change does not come when we complain that the world has gone wrong; change comes when we become world changers.
So deep personal change must occur, in spite of all the changes that happen in our surroundings. If we fail to allow our hearts to be stirred, choosing to change from the inside out, we will not have a positive influence in a rapidly changing world. And change is happening like never before.
Few people in history have ever lived through the kind of dramatic global and cultural change taking place during our lifetime. Jesus of Nazareth announced major change for the Israelites; he told them their Temple, the center of their culture, was going to be destroyed. They could not accept it; and they sent him to the brutal public and painful death of crucifixion. The Temple was destroyed, and everything changed. But too few living in Israel understood the importance of the changes taking place. Too few allowed their hearts to be stirred.
Jesus warned that they should “flee to the mountains”, but too many held out to protect their precious Temple, even fighting each other when the Romans surrounded the city just before they burned the Temple to the ground. After the destruction and the fire ended, Roman soldiers entered the temple to harvest the gold much of which had melted and seeped between the stones in the floor. Yes, as Jesus foretold, “not one stone” was left unturned. The city of Jerusalem could not be recognized after the destruction. People could not imagine anyone living there. Change.
It appears today that the very fabric of modern society is collapsing. Have the foundations been destroyed? If so, what can be done?
When the foundations are being destroyed, what can the righteous do?” Psalm 11:3
This video outlines the changes occurring today, especially how they relate to the church. Watch it and let us know what you think.
Fatherhood and the Future
There’s no day in my life that has had more impact on the future of this world than the day I became a dad. Really. When my first child was born, everything changed for me and my future, but it also changed for a future I will not see. The day I became a dad changed history. Future generations will be changed, either positively (or negatively), through my children, and their children…and so on.
We were in Hawai’i in a little block-walled clinic on the Big Island the day our first boy, Justin, was born. Yes, Justin is ‘Hawaiian’ and his birth certificate looks just like Obama’s. I will never forget the intense emotion of holding my wife’s hand at the moment she was giving birth. I made the mistake of offering my left hand with my wedding ring. She squeezed very hard and my ring pinched. I was tempted to say, “Mary, that hurts.” But of course, that’s not what you do. (Hint to expecting fathers: Take off your ring or offer your right hand.)
Father Knows Best
This has me thinking today about what Mom’s already know best: There is no future without the pain of anticipation in the present moment. Every major decision or purposeful act in life, has painful consequence. Living life with purpose is difficult; you must forego easier options, less painful choices. Fearing the pain may lead to the failure to act or decide. But that also has consequence, a delay of living with purpose. A delay of fulfilling a greater purpose, a greater contribution to this life. The future is shaped by those who decide, those who make sacrificial choices, not for themselves, but on behalf of a future generation. Father’s make sacrificial choices in hope that their children will make choices that will please them.
Sadly, there is a deep pain that father’s can carry into the future too. My own dad went through plenty of pain with me when I was a boy, especially my teen years. My mom and dad broke up in the late 60′s and my four brothers and I were, there’s no other word for it, brokenhearted. The result: we all carried the pain. We failed to communicate and I ultimately turned to rebellion.
My choices produced a lifetime of strained relationship with my dad. My utter failure in so many categories when I was younger has made it difficult for my dad to forgive me. I also know I am not the only cause of the pain of those past years. Nonetheless, I know my choices in life, including those choices after I met Jesus, have been different than what my dad would have chosen for me, especially my call to serve as a faith missionary.
The Call
Whether I make him proud with my life choices or not, I know my life has been shaped in part by my dad’s commitment to do the right thing. Doing the right thing, as a father or as any leader in any organization or any nation, will require courage and a willingness to be misunderstood. This is why I regularly teach the biblical doctrine of vocation or calling. I will be teaching again this week in our University Discipleship Training School in Madison, Wisconsin. Beginning with the example of Fatherhood and Motherhood, we need to teach calling, which extends into every sphere of society. Understanding God’s calling and leading by example is so urgently needed in our society today.
Leaders must be willing to make the difficult choices on behalf of their community. For example, here in Wisconsin, we have Gov. Walker and the duly elected legislature making difficult budget choices on behalf the community and future generations. The US Congress is facing the same difficult choices, requiring leadership and an understanding of calling that transcends party and politics. Making the decisions required will cause pain in the present; certainly those making the difficult decisions are facing terrible accusations and threats. Like a father and mother paying down a household debt, elected leaders need to balance the State and Federal budgets. Today’s challenges require leadership that chooses to trust and not control those they serve. Like the trust I must now have for my adult sons, Justin and Nathan, our society needs leaders who trust members of the community, other leaders in the private sector, to take risks, create wealth and jobs, and thereby serve their community.
May we all walk worthy of the calling.
As a dad, I know there is probably no more difficult calling on planet earth (probably second to being a mom.) This Father’s Day, I sent my dad a note thanking him again for the many ways, even through the pain of a broken home, he sacrificed and made good memories for me and my brothers. Thanks dad!
The Open Secret
Lesslie Newbigin’s The Open Secret: An Introduction to the Theology of Mission is a tightly-packed book; it’s a summary of a four-year missiology course. I really like Newbigin. I joined many others who have followed his re-examination of our job as Christians, particularly in the Western world, which is:
“to learn what he [God] is doing in the world which is already his, not to introduce him to a world from which he is absent.” (1995:67)
Newbigin was a missionary for three decades. His practical experience shaped his theology, and not the other way around. Forged in the years of missionary service, Newbigin returned with a very different view of his own homeland, England, and the Church in the West. Newbigin paved the way ahead for the Church in an increasingly globalized and pluralistic world.
Before I read this book, I asked the following questions: (It’s a very good practice for reading; engage the author with your questions before you read.)
- What key insights will Newbigin offer to my understanding the theology of mission?
- What is the role of the local congregation?
- How can I apply these understandings?
1. Newbigin’s key insights on the theology of mission:
If you have questions about the doctrine of election, the law, and the covenant of God, all of which have been distorted to the detriment of missions, you should read this book. Newbigin, like the apostle Paul, saw these issues as central to his call. The doctrine of election should be taught as a “fearful responsibility,” rather than defining an exclusive group. (1995:73)
Newbigin explains how the law, the Torah, exonerates God of all blame for sin. The biblical narrative shows how the law itself is insufficient. The law was “ordained by angels” (1995:75), a delegated authority which is limited. That law, like any “elementary principle”, was used by its angelic agency which ultimately gained control, a control from which humanity needed to be liberated through a spiritual battle:
“For though we live in the world we are not carrying on a worldly war, for the weapons of our warfare are not worldly but have divine power to destroy strongholds. We destroy arguments and every proud obstacle to the knowledge of God, and take every thought captive to obey Christ, being ready to punish every disobedience, when your obedience is complete.” (2 Cor. 10:3-6)
(This notion of spiritual control through “elementary principles” or “stoichaea” is outlined in Paul’s letter to the Galatians and unpacked in chapter 16 of Newbigin’s book, “Gospel in a Pluralistic Society”.)
Newbigin fills out the unchanging nature of God’s Mission, which is:
“Proclaiming of God’s kingdom over all human history and over the whole cosmos” and “…the active agent of mission is a power that rules, guides, and goes before the church. The free, sovereign, living power of the Spirit of God.” (1995:56)
Probably my most important insight in Open Secret is that “significant advances of the church have not been the result of our own decisions about the mobilizing and allocating of ‘resources,’” Newbigin writes,
“The significant advances in my experience have come through happenings of which the story of Peter and Cornelius is a paradigm, in ways of which we have no advance knowledge. God opens the heart of a man or woman in the gospel. The messenger (the ‘angel’ of Acts 10:3) may be a stranger, a preacher, a piece of Scripture, a dream, an answered prayer, or a deep experience of joy or sorrow, of danger or deliverance. It was not part of any missionary ‘strategy’ devised by the church. It was the free and sovereign deed of God, who goes before the church…this mission is not ours but God’s.” (1995:64)
2. The role of the local congregation:
“As the Father has sent me, so I send you.” (Jn. 20:21)
The Great Commission is not given to individuals, but to the Church which he has sent into the world. The role of the local church has been one of my greatest questions as a missionary. Why do so many churches behave competitively with their neighbors? What kind of leadership formation is needed to lead a community? What is the ultimate purpose, the fruit that we should look for in a church community?
Newbigin points out that Jesus explanation of the gospel was to be “introduced into history…in the form of a community, not in the form of a book.” (1995:52) It is the role of the local congregation to gather to celebrate “the centrality of the Lord’s Supper in the continuation of Jesus’ mission.” (2 Cor. 4:10 and Jn. 13-16) When we gather, we celebrate this “happening” in history and its continuation.
Rather than write a book (or give instructions for the writing of a book), Jesus instituted a community, which ‘remembers‘. The New Testament was written as an act of remembering, first the letters and then the gospels. The gospels were written a generation after Pentecost, when the only eye witnesses of Jesus death, burial, and resurrection were themselves dying off. When we gather to celebrate Jesus’ lordship over all creation, we remember. And as a community, Newbigin writes, we:
“enter into the stream of historical happenings and become part of its course. In other words, if it is true that God’s reign concerns history in its unity and totality…we must be related to it, and must share in its power, not merely by reading of it in a book or hearing it in a verbal report, but by participating in the life of that society which springs from it and is continuous with it.” (1995:51)
This participation in that community of faith, through the agency of the Holy Spirit, gives us the authority to be his witnesses in life of the surrounding society. We can rest with confidence in our authority as messengers of grace and judgment. We can, by virtue of the deposit of the Spirit of God, be the presence of Jesus in a community as well as the announcement of the in-breaking kingdom of God. (Jn. 13:20 and Mt. 11:25-30)
“The presence of the kingdom, hidden and revealed in the cross of Jesus, is carried through history hidden and revealed in the life of that community which bears in its life the dying and rising of Jesus.” (1995:52)
I have seen many churches today strive for some modern business success model of growth, but this is not the biblical model of the local congregation. Instead, it is simply through dependence on the Holy Spirit, and especially when there is evidence of humility, failure, brokenness, and foolish mistakes, that our witness is authentic and the Lord will judge us ‘faithful’.
“The real triumphs of the gospel have not been won when the Church is strong in a worldly sense; they have been won when the Church is faithful in the midst of weakness, contempt, and rejection.” (1995:62)
The New Testament provides little definition of the local congregation. The word “church” or “ecclesia” only appears in one of the gospels, Matthew’s Gospel, and only in relation to a discipline issue that apparently emerged. There is, however, plenty of instruction as to the leadership, character, and purpose of the congregation (mostly found in Paul’s letters). This gives an amazing flexibility for a community of believers to bear witness to the in-breaking presence of the kingdom.
3. Applications:
Newbigin offers a timely prescription for gatherings of believers today. He prescribes a missiological understanding of theology, rather than a theological understanding of mission. Part of my call, though primarily focused on student initiatives in missions, is also to work with gatherings of believers, especially in university communities, to work collaboratively following God’s mission. My work as a missionary has changed me and this book mostly confirms and clarifies those changes. Newbigin puts it this way:
“Mission (led by the Holy Spirit) changes not only the world but also the Church…There is a conversion of the Church as well as the conversion of Cornelius.” (1995:59)
So my role is becoming more and more involved in engaging and mobilizing local congregations and their leaders to work together in Christ’s Mission.
Newbigin points out the ‘fact of Christ’ as a happening at one time and place showing that “God’s reign concerns history in its unity and totality.” (1995:51) We therefore all relate to this monumental event, and we must learn to share in its power in our witness to the wider world. The cross of Christ is:
“a happening, it is a part of history. It is located at a particular point of place and time in the whole vast fabric of human affairs.” (1995:50)
This book convicts me. I must confess that too often I have made missionary plans using my own ideas and my own strength, forgetting the most important thing about that mission. Though I know how to listen to the voice of the Lord, I often launch ahead without clear instructions. I must always remember the mission is not mine and it’s not the Church’s, it’s God’s.
This book has helped me learn afresh that as we learn not to depend on human ingenuity, we can demonstrate the “hope that is given by the presence of the Spirit who is the living foretaste of the kingdom.” (1995:64-65) We may not only announce the kingdom of God, we can embody it.
It Happened at a Haystack
200th Anniversary Gathering at the Haystack Prayer Monument
I first learned of the monument on the Williams College campus in 1988 while researching student missions. In 2006, I joined several student ministries leaders from across the nation at the 200th anniversary of the event that led to the establishing of this memorial. Do you know why there is a monument on the small elite college campus in Western Massachusetts? Sadly, even some graduates of Williams College do not know the importance of this monument. What happened there?
In 1806, a small band of students at Williams College in Massachusetts led by Samuel J. Mills, Jr., prayed every Wednesday and Saturday afternoon. Walking home one day after prayer, they were caught in a rainstorm and found refuge in a haystack. Apparently they sensed something of God’s urgency in their prayers that day. Rather than tell jokes or talk about how crazy the storm suddenly became, they gave themselves to continue in prayer for the topics they had been in prayer about that afternood. They prayed for Asia and for missionary involvement among students.
This solemn moment changed history. “Whatsoever we beg of God, let us also work for it,” said Mills. Fervent in prayer and determined to live their lives with integrity, they committed themselves to become the answer to their prayers.
The Haystack Prayer Meeting marked an early beginning of a great wave of thousands of missionaries serving around the globe over then next century, particularly students. Before that time no missionaries had been sent from the North American continent. (Though there is evidence of one former African slave who went to Jamaica. If you know more about this earliest American missionary, please let me know.)
Within four years, the zeal and vision of these students brought about the formation of the first American mission board. Adoniram Judson, the first N. American missionary, sailed for India to work with William Carey. Williams College students continued to go to the foreign fields. The students of the Haystack Prayer Meeting transferred to other colleges to spread the vision and within 3 years, they established student groups committed to world mission in almost every one of the 25 colleges in the young nation. (To offer some historical perspective: In 1804, President Thomas Jefferson sent Lewis & Clark to the Western Frontiers to explore territories recently acquired in the Louisiana Purchase.)
The beginning of a wave of missionary involvement among college students had begun. Over 263 students became missionaries. About 80 years later, this early impulse of student involvement in world missions came into full bloom with the Student Volunteer Movement. This marvelous story began as a few students answered the call to perseverance in pray and corresponding obedience to become the answer to their own prayer.
How then should we pray today?
What is Calling?
My definition of calling is: “Engagement with the world in response to God.” It may be too simple, but it comes down to this: Are we living for God or ourselves. The ancients used the term Coram Deo, which means “To live in one world before the face of God.”
Coram Deo. To live Coram Deo is to live in one world before the face of God. The notion of calling comes from the fact that God communicates to his people; He speaks! He calls us by name. Vocation comes from the Latin root, Vox or Voice. A vocation is not merely a choice of career, but a call from God. Calling comes from outside of us, not the inside. However, God places within each of us individual gifts and talents and strengths, which help us to “hear” , to find and to fulfill our calling.
The challenge for many of us is this: Are we listening? Are we seeking? Are we pursuing God’s dreams or our own?
When our motives are not to pursue God’s dream, God hides himself.
We are to live our lives on purpose because we are created with purpose. We are spiritual beings with dreams much bigger than ourselves. God has set eternity in our hearts. He has created us unique, unlike any other being or individual in all of creation. We have unique finger prints, retina, voice print, and DNA. God made you a spiritual being. Calling is important because the spiritual life is to impregnate every area of life.
When we begin to seek God to know his loving heart for us and for every individual, every nation, and the planet we walk on, that is when we begin to understand his calling. Calling is the summons to participate in the will and work of God in human history.
If you are ready to pursue God’s dream, take some time now to get alone and listen to the heart of God, the One who created you and everything else. In the words of Francis Schaffer, “He is there. And He is not silent.”
The Story
A dramatization of the haystack prayer meeting
The story of the Haystack Prayer Meeting is an account of the power of prayer and a portrayal of the courage of colleges students who provided a new generation of Christian mission leadership. Led by Samuel Mills, this small, seemingly insignificant gathering of five students from Williams College in the Berkshire Mountains of western Massachusetts in 1806 changed the course of history.
“History is a search for wisdom from the past to help us today,” writes Kenneth Scott Latourette, Professor of Missions and Oriental History at Yale University. For example, understanding the Christianizing of the Roman Empire requires an analysis of the story, which was more than the deterioration of a corrupt society. The expansion of Christianity is “a series of power encounters, exorcisms, and healings,” writes Latourette. Ultimately, he adds, “the ‘mustard seed’ toppled the Empire.” History, it would seem from the Christian perspective, requires an understanding of the power of prayer. (Latourette 1970)
We will return to the story of Samuel Mills and his friends in this new series of posts. This new page on the Barefoot Blog will broaden the story of universities, their role in the discipling of nations in fulfillment of the Great Commission, and of students, professors, and others who have served God’s purposes as part of His-Story.
The Importance of the Book of Acts
The Book of Acts is obviously Luke’s continuing historical account transitioning from the story of Jesus to the story of the Church. What’s somewhat surprising is the necessity to foster a theological perspective, or rather a missiological perspective, as you read the chronology of the early witnesses of the Good News to the Gentile nations. The fact is we would not be able to understand the rest of the New Testament without the Book of Acts.
Luke & Acts are primarily historical documents in nature. It is not a pure history. It comes from a limited perspective of what occurred in and outside the community of believers, which expanded throughout the Roman Empire. It should not discourage us to know that we will not find a purely objective history. It is value-based, biased, and a limited view of the events.
Our study of the Scriptures requires respect; no method of study will “correspond precisely to the conviction that the New Testament… comprises the Scriptures of the Christian Church.” (Achtemeier, Green, and Thompson: 12)
By having respect, I mean that we should employ a “critical openness” posture, listening respectfully and responding thoughtfully. We should examine the literary and historical nature of the documents, and at the same time understand their importance shaping the faith and conduct of communities of Christ followers through the centuries and in many cultures.
DEMYSTIFYING REVELATION (Part 1 of 5)
The Book of Revelation is a unique New Testament apocalypse, often mistaken as a “mystery” to be decoded. Revelation has been dramatically portrayed in recent years as a predictive timeline of the end of the world. Apocalyptic literature has predicted the coming of the Messiah for centuries, before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The central message of Revelation, however, is not predictive. Rather than seek a timeline of eschatological events, Revelation confirms that the “great turning point” in history has already occurred. Revelation is a testimony of Jesus’ resurrection and sovereignty, which is “the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). Prophecy is not primarily intended to predict future events. It is for the “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” of the church (1 Cor. 14:3-4). John’s prophecy is exposing false teachings and denouncing idolatry, which result in the abuse of authority in every sphere of human society. This message to “seven churches” at the end of the first century is written as a warning to evoke a particular response, to “repent.”
The book of Revelation is an encouragement to the churches to “return” (Rev. 2:5), to “obey” (Rev. 3:3), to “beware” (Rev. 2:10), to “wake up” (Rev. 3:2-3), to “hold fast” (Rev. 3:11), to “listen” and to “open the door” (Rev. 3:20) in response to Jesus. While unveiling the glory and majesty of the risen “King of the nations” (Rev. 15:3) to his readers, John reveals Jesus’ hope for “the rest of humankind” (Rev. 9:20), that through the times of “wrath” (Rev. 16:1), all would have opportunity to repent. Revelation is demystified when we read it essentially as a prophecy, encouraging churches to be faithful to the testimony of Jesus, his incarnation, his leadership, and his promise for all humanity.
See more at http://johnthenry.wordpress.com
The Book of Revelation is a unique New Testament apocalypse, often mistaken as a “mystery” to be decoded. Revelation has been dramatically portrayed in recent years as a predictive timeline of the end of the world. Apocalyptic literature has predicted the coming of the Messiah for centuries, before and after the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The central message of Revelation, however, is not predictive. Rather than to present a timeline of eschatological events, Revelation confirms that the “great turning point” in history has already occurred. Revelation is a testimony of Jesus’ resurrection and sovereignty, which is “the spirit of prophecy” (Rev. 19:10). Prophecy is not primarily intended to predict future events. It is for the “upbuilding and encouragement and consolation” of the church (1 Cor. 14:3-4). John’s prophecy is exposing false teachings and denouncing idolatry, which result in the abuse of authority in every sphere of human society. This message to “seven churches” at the end of the first century is written as a warning to evoke a particular response, to “repent.”
The book of Revelation is an encouragement to the churches to “return” (Rev. 2:5), to “obey” (Rev. 3:3), to “beware” (Rev. 2:10), to “wake up” (Rev. 3:2-3), to “hold fast” (Rev. 3:11), to “listen” and to “open the door” (Rev. 3:20) in response to Jesus. While unveiling the glory and majesty of the risen “King of the nations” (Rev. 15:3) to his readers, John reveals Jesus’ hope for “the rest of humankind” (Rev. 9:20), that through the times of “wrath” (Rev. 16:1), all would have opportunity to repent. Revelation is demystified when we read it essentially as a prophecy, encouraging churches to be faithful to the testimony of Jesus, his incarnation, his leadership, and his promise for all humanity.
Concluding Thoughts on Culture and the NT (Part 5 of 5)
Understanding González’ paradigms of culture helps us understand Paul, who reconciled his identity as a Mestizos. González’ paradigms help us understand why Paul stood so strongly against those who preached a “different gospel” (Gal. 1:6 NIV) which throughout history has fragmented, marginalized, exiled, and made aliens. These paradigms help us interpret how God is at work among people in the margins or between cultures. The paradigm of solidarity helps us see in the Scriptures and throughout history the need for give-and-take dialog between cultures and the need for proper engagement within culture. As González relates, “The most exciting things have happened, not at the traditional centers of the life of the church, but at the edges.” The disarming of principalities and powers occurs as we participate with God in the example of Pentecost through which God’s Spirit inaugurates the character of openness to outsiders. Interpretation of the New Testament, without attention to the influences of culture, may lead to alienation and distort the message, however the Bible will always affirm the purpose of God, directing the readers’ understanding to the call of the new community of Jesus’ followers to open their hearts to every culture to become One New Humanity.
Jesus of History and Drinking the Koolaid
Like N.T. Wright, I admit that I drank the “koolaid” and I’m a “fool for Christ.” I’m in agreement with Wright and Paul that if Jesus did not rise from the dead, Jesus followers are most to be pitied. We’re living in “cuckoo-land.” With that in mind, it’s become increasingly clear to me that postmodern theologians are more true to the first century practice of theology, which we see in the way the Gospels are written, than are those who refuse to engage the truth in their contemporary cultural context.
Frustration has mounted over the years as I have listened to many church sermons and bible teachers who seem to have a disconnectedness from the historical Jesus. We should be concerned about our culture and setting, our local communities as we preach and teach the story of Jesus. However that concern and contextualization of the message should not be at the expense of the story of Jesus who walked the earth in Palestine in the first century.
Mine has been not only a concern for my local church and ministry community; I am also concerned for the global community of Jesus followers. I have been especially concerned about how Western Christians relate to the new Majority Church in the Global South, including China’s 100 million believers. I have been concerned about christian university students from around the world who are trying to find their way in a postmodern world.
Interpreting the Gospels, discerning any differences between the historical Jesus and a community’s own Christ of faith, is necessary to respond to the concerns we have for our communities. We must respond to the extremes of the liberal quest for the historical Jesus as well as the often simplistic conservative reactions to any scholarly quest to understand Jesus of history. For my part, I want to offer the hope of a vital connection with the Jesus of history to a postmodern generation no longer anchored to a Christian tradition.
