TILL HE COMES Blog

It’s popular in Christian circles today to talk about creating community. It is argued that one of the greatest things lacking in most of our churches is a sense of community, that we all belong, and are headed somewhere together — and actually enjoying each other’s company as we do it!

Whole books are written about how to develop this community within your church. Church planters talk about founding communities of faith, hope, and love. Many churches will even put the word “community” in their name.

However, the more I read the Scriptures, the more I get this strange feeling that Jesus never really intended to create a community. Instead, my reading of the Gospels leads me to believe that Jesus never intended to found a new community and ask people to join it, but rather to find already-existing communities, and join with them. So he went to synagogues (the teaching centers), weddings, dinner parties, watering holes, and join in the community that had already naturally developed.

There were, of course, always problems in such communities, and Jesus frequently tried to heal the brokenness and pain that was present in the community. But this is a more natural way of developing community than by putting together a bunch of strangers and saying, “Now get along!”

So are you trying to “plant a church” or “reach out” to your community? How about rather than starting something of your own and asking them to join you, why don’t you find out what God is already doing in your community, and then see how you join them. Don’t try to found the community; just find the one that is already there.

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Have you ever experienced a “Dark Night of the Soul”? When God seems silent, the Bible seems devoid of meaning, every day seems to grow blacker, and other Christians seems like aliens from another planet? In such times, you will often experience doubts and fears about things that you never would have doubted or feared in times of blessing and being close to God.

In these times, you will often hear Christians say, “Don’t doubt in the dark what God revealed in the light.”  In other words, if God taught you something, or gave you a vision for your life in a time of blessing and being close to God, then don’t doubt these things in times of darkness, difficulty, and depression.

I’ve gone through several “Dark Nights” in my life. And while I used to believe this “Don’t doubt in the dark” slogan, I am beginning to question it’s wisdom. In the first place, who defines “dark”? Isn’t it the storms of life, and times of feeling distant from God that are able to make us cry out for Him even more, and learn to trust Him even more? Such times can, of course, drive us away from God, but (as the shirt says) “If the pain doesn’t kill you, it will only make  you stronger.” Maybe dark nights are when God is at work on us the most! Maybe dark nights of the soul are actually brilliant days of refining fire! I imagine that when we look back at our life, we will see that it was in the “dark nights” that God was most at work in our lives.

Which means that the doubts and fears we have in such times may actually be from God. Maybe, the best think you can do in a dark night is question some of the things you thought you knew from the “warm and fuzzy days of light.” Maybe it’s the truths we learn in the thunderous dark that God really wants to teach us, but we long for the emotions and feelings of a day at the beach.

Let me give you a personal example from my own life. In the light of the day, I was a pastor. I loved being a pastor. Every day, when I went to work, I couldn’t believe that I got paid to do what I was doing. And I think I was a fairly decent pastor. Not the best, but decent. They were giddy times for me. My family suffered, but I personally enjoyed it. Looking back, I think it was the time I felt the closest to God.

The last three years of my life have been a dark night. Storms and distress. Fear and failure. Depression. Anguish. Anger. During this time, I became quite disillusioned with the “religion” of Christianity. I saw it as empty and shallow. My view of God changed. My view of “ministry” changed. Several elements of my theology changed. During this time, people kept saying, “Don’t doubt in the dark what God revealed in the day. Stay the course. Things will get better.”

But I didn’t go back.

And now, I am somewhere in the dusk (or dawn?) between the night and day. And I’m trying to decide where the true light was. Was it when I was a pastor? Or was that just “ignorance is bliss” and now I know the real truth, revealed by God in the darkness and the stormy sea? Knowing what I know now, I wouldn’t go back to the way I was, or the way I thought, for anything. It was a painful route to get here, but I would do it all over again if it was the only way to learn what I have learned.

So maybe the darkness is light after all.

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I’ve never been one for prepackaged group Bible studies. Generally, I disdain them. To put it crudely, (in the words of a famous line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail) I fart in their general direction. I can’t tell you how many hundreds of hours I have spent yawning and eye-rolling through such studies.

However, I was recently sent a group study which I not only like, but thoroughly recommend! Yes, this group study is worth the money you spend on it! It’s called The Tangible Kingdom Primer and is based on a book which I recommended last year called The Tangible Kingdom by Hugh Halter and Matt Smay. The book itself is one of the best books I have read on how to live a life of evangelism and mission for church planting. The more I work on planting churches, and the more I read about the gospel and the kingdom, the more convinced I am that this book is a “must read,” not only for church planters, but for all who follow Jesus.

And now, the eight-week guide makes the ideas of the book even more accessible. This is a fantastic tool to help Christians become “missional” and “incarnational” according to the gospel. I highly recommend that groups of believers around the country go through this study while reading The Tangible Kingdom. The study contains stunning images, thought-provoking questions, and most importantly, missional insights into key biblical texts.

If you really want to follow Jesus, this little guide will show you what it is, how to do it, why we should, and (most often forgotten) where. (Did you know that it is hard to follow Jesus if all you do is “attend church”?) If you want to “reach out,” but don’t really know how, this primer is the place to start.

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When you watch a movie, do you watch it just for entertainment value? Let me suggest a different way: As you watch, be asking yourself, “What does this movie say about humans and our needs, about God, about religion, about the meaning of life?” Doing so really allows you to get more out of a movie than ever before.

In the churches I am part of, one of the things I try to do on occasion, is host a movie study. I pick a movie, and open it up with some discussion questions to watch for during the movie. Then we watch it. Afterwards, we discuss the movie, and some of the questions. Here is one such study I did recently on the movie “Henry Poole is Here.” If you haven’t seen the movie, I suggest you rent it, and watch it while asking yourself some of the questions below.

Henry Poole is Here
Is your life a miracle or a mistake?

Quote: “Do you ever feel like things happen for no reason? Like you’re just along for the ride?”

Quote:“All that either of us have is right now.”

Discussion Questions:

What do you think of some people’s tendency to see apparition of Jesus (or Mary) in strange places - like a lava lamp, a Cheeto, a piece of toast, or a water stain on a wall? Are these miracles, or just mistakes?
  
What do you think of healing, especially when it happens to people who believe differently than you do? Are such healings from God, from Satan, or just mere coincidence? What do you think they believe about your claims of healing? What do you think atheists believe about all such claims?

What does the movie say about people’s greatest desire, as seen through Henry, Esperanza, Patience, Millie, and Dawn? How about the film director (Mark Pellington) himself? Four years ago, he lost his wife unexpectedly to a ruptured spleen, and was left to take care of his 2 ½ year-old daughter, Isabella. He says that many times he wanted to end it all, but Isabella and others gave him the hope to go on.

How does water play a role in the move? (Henry’s name. Trying to wash the wall. The balloon fight: “I surrender.” The river walk.) What does it symbolize? What role does water play in the life of the believer, and what does it symbolize?

Why does Henry want to check under the bridge for what he wrote as a child? Why does he post the picture of his family on his wall, and write “Henry Pool was here” underneath?

Can people see the face of Christ in you? Are you a source of hope to those in pain? When you encounter people who are filled with depression and despair, who, or what, do you point them to? Is this a reliable source of hope?

WARNING: SPOILERS BELOW

What is it that all people want? We could say, “Money” or “fame” or “health” but really, these are pointing to something else, something hidden, that people want: HOPE. Hope for the future. Hope for something better. This life is full of disappointment and despair, but hope keeps us going.

Henry Poole needs hope. Upon moving into his home, the first person to welcome him to the neighborhood is a woman named Esperanza, which in Spanish, means “hope.” And like hope, she is unrelenting. Patience patiently works with Henry. And Dawn is the light. Upon meeting Dawn, he begins to feel hope.
    
And yet, Henry Poole is a man without hope. His situation is so desperate, his life has been so full of fear and failure, that he cannot bring himself to hope. He cannot bring himself to touch the face of Jesus on his wall. Why not? For fear it “won’t work.” For fear of another failure.

In the end, Henry discovers he is not sick. Was he healed, or was it a misdiagnosis? As with the other healings, the movie leaves such questions unanswered. But whether the physical healing occurred or not, Henry is still healed, because he now has hope.

How can you be a voice of hope to those around you? How can you be the face of Christ?

How do you view your life? As one big mistake, or one big miracle? Henry Poole has problems seeing a miracle in the stain on his wall. What he realizes by the end is that whether it is just a stain or actually a miracle, it still caused a miracle in his life. Regardless of whether he was truly healed or simply misdiagnosed, he found the miracle of love and hope for the future, he found that his life could actually be lived with significance.

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Justification: God’s Plan & Paul’s Vision (IVP: 2009) is N.T. Wright’s attempt to explain once again his view on Paul’s use of justification. He wrote it as a summary of his view, and as a response to critics (primarily John Piper) who seem to not understand what he is saying.

The book is written with ironic humor and remarkable restraint, but the most amazing feature is the Biblical paradigm shift that Wright presents to his readers regarding justification. Though most of what Wright explains in this book he has written elsewhere, this book puts it all together in nice, orderly fashion, so that even if one does not agree with Wright, we can hope that they will now be able to critique his view with understanding.

As for myself, I am not yet fully persuaded of Wright’s view. His basic view is that justification is God’s law-court declaration that a person is in right standing (so far, so good) with God’s covenant. It’s that covenant part that raises questions, particularly since Wright’s definition of justification does away with the doctrine of imputed righteousness. Wright does not believe that through justification we receive the righteousness of Christ (p. 135).

And yet, what Wright takes away with one hand, he gives back with another. Wright argues that issues related to deliverance from the penalty and power of sin in our lives come through resurrection, not through justification (pp. 231-235). This, however, though a major doctrine, is a minor point in Wright’s book.

His main concern is to show how his view of justification makes more sense of the Pauline passages that speak of it. And with this, he is more than a conqueror. If, for example, you’ve ever struggled with what Romans 9-11 has to do with the rest of the letter, Wright’s view makes these chapters not only fit within the flow of Paul’s argument, but actually become the pinnacle and the climax of Romans. Wright’s strength in this is due to his insistence on reading the biblical text, not with twenty-first century eyes and sixteenth-century questions, but with first-century eyes and first-century questions. This, it seems to me, is the best way to read and study Scripture, and Wright does an excellent job leading the way.

If you want to understand some of the nuances to the current debate on justification, I recommend this book. If, however, you want to understand the thought flow of some of Paul’s letters (like Galatians, Ephesians, and Romans), this book must not be ignored. Take it up, and read.

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Each one of us, every day, are surrounded by hell. Children getting sold as sex slaves. Terrorists trying to blow people up. Fathers losing their jobs and getting kicked out of their homes. Couples going through painful breakups. Desperate women selling themselves just to pay the rent. Alcoholism, drug addiction, greed. Even in churches, hell is present with the backbiting, slander, and jealous quarrels that so often go on.

And just as Jesus came to a sinful world, He wants us to follow Him into places where sin and it’s consequences abound. Why? To offer love, hope, and forgiveness. I believe Jesus wants His followers to go to hell.

Who in your neighborhood is in the hell of loneliness? Can’t you reach out to them and offer some companionship? Who just got laid off at work and can’t pay rent? Are you able to call them up, and offer to have them live with you? Maybe they need a car, or meals several times a week. Maybe you can get involved in stopping the child sex slave industry which is growing here in the United States.  Maybe you can support adoption efforts, or show concern (rather than condemnation) for prostitutes and strippers.

The possibilities are endless. But if we are following Jesus, the last thing He wants is for us to be comfortable with our routine of attending church, reading our Bibles, and praying. He wants us to get out there, to people caught in the ways of hell, and reveal to them the ways of heaven.

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“Go to church and sin!
    Attend Bible studies and multiply your sins!
Volunteer to clean the church.
   Faithfully tithe your 10%.
Praise Jesus for all He has given you.
   Thank God for your many blessings.
For these are the things, Oh Christian, you love to do,”
    says the Lord God.  

“I hate your pot lucks.
    Nor do I delight in your Christian concerts.
Though you give generously to support the building fund,
   And donate faithfully to the Christian organizations,
I will not even look at these many gifts.

“Cease your many sermons,
    Stop writing your faithful blog.
Get out of your pew,
   Put away all your Christian books.

“When you fast, I will not listen.
   Though you cry out, I will not hear.
I will not accept your offerings
   And sacrifices of praise.

“Take away from me the noise of your many songs,
   Your numerous prayers are an abomination!
Quit playing the guitars, banging on the drums, 
   And raising your hands in praise.
Stop trampling the parking lots 
   In your eagerness to get to church.

“Sunday morning, Sunday night.
    Wednesday evening, Friday morning.
I hate all your meetings.
   I despise your numerous studies.
They are all evil in my sight.

“Instead, let justice roll down like a waterfall,
    And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.
I desire mercy, not sacrifice.
   I want you do justice, love kindness,
And walk humbly with your God.”

———————————

Offended? Try these:
Isaiah 1:12-13
Amos 4:4-5
Amos 5:21-24
Jeremiah 14:12
Hosea 6:6
Micah 6:6-8

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I have long thought that nothing in culture is so good that it can be accepted “as is.” Also, nothing in culture is so twisted and evil that it is beyond the scope of redemption. God can take anything and turn it around to bring glory to Him. God can take anybody and raise them up to glory and honor. Each one of us is the perfect example.

However, while I believe that everything is redeemable, not every aspect about everything can be redeemed.  

Last week, I read the following comment by N. T. Wright who says it much better than I: “Christians are neither chameleons, changing color to suit their surroundings, nor rhinoceroses, ready to charge at anything in sight. There is no straightforward transference between any item of ordinary culture and the gospel since all has been distorted by evil; but likewise there is nothing so twisted that it cannot be redeemed, and nothing evil in itself.” (p 7).

So look around. Who have you given up on? Who is “beyond reach”? Who is “too far gone”? What places, countries, customs, events, holidays, and festivals have you written off as “of the devil”? Take those, and begin to think and pray about how God might want to redeem them for Himself.

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Today in the M’Cheyne reading plan, I read Numbers 17-18. This section (actually, chapters 16-18) of Scripture has been bothering me recently because of the frequent struggles church leaders have with others in the church who either are leaders or want to be leaders. I’m sure all of us who have been involved in any sort of ministry position have experienced such tensions in ministry leadership. I know I have…and am.

I have often thought how nice it would be to call for a “prophet’s duel” as we read about in 1 Kings 18 or here in Numbers 16-17, just to see who is really right.

If you have ever been in such situations, you have probably caught yourself thinking, ”Lord, may the ground swallow them up!” If you haven’t thought something similar, well, you are better than I.

You see, we leaders have the idea that we are like Moses, and all those who challenge our position are like the rebellious family of Korah. We preach sermons based on the Psalm 105:14-15: “Touch not the Lord’s anointed” and how we are “above reproach” and so should not be reproached.

Talk about an egocentric reading! If we really want to plug in people to Numbers 16-17 (which I am not sure is the right way to “apply” this text), I think it is safest to say that all of us, church leaders and pastors included, are the rebellious family of Korah, and Jesus is Moses. As we fight among ourselves for positions of power and authority, we are like Korah, trying to take for ourselves what belongs to Jesus only.

So are you experiencing power struggles in your church? For proper perspective, don’t read yourself in Moses. Read yourself into Korah, and see how that changes your dealings with “the others.”

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One of the things I try to do in following Jesus is spend time reading Scripture. It is certainly more difficult now than when I was a pastor, but the struggle to “fit it in” is helping me learn just how difficult (and important) Bible reading is for the ”working Joe.”

About six years ago, I started using the M’Cheyne Bible Reading plan. I certainly have not done it completely all six years, but I find it one of the best plans available because of the variety of readings it gives me every day.

Anyway, I think that one thing I might do occasionally is post a few comments on this blog for the reading from that day. That way, if you are reading along the same plan, what I write here will sync with what you were reading that day.

Today, one of the chapters in the reading was Psalm 53. It begins with a quite famous verse: “The fool has said in his heart, ‘There is no God.’”

Lots of Christians love to use this verse to bash atheists. “Look!” they say. “The Bible says that atheists are fools! How can they be so ignorant as to not see that all creation speaks of the existence of God?” Then the Christian turns to Romans 1, or to some of the logical arguments for the existence of God.

However, this reading of the text is probably not what David had in mind. He was not writing against atheism. After all, atheism is really only a few hundred years old. Prior to the Enlightenment, everyone believed in the existence of some sort of god or gods. So Psalm 53:1 has nothing to do with atheism.

Rather, the author is writing against the person who chooses to live “as if” God were absent, not caring what we do, not watching over our lives. It is the one who believes God exists, but refuses to read God’s Word, listen to God’s voice, and instead, simply does what one pleases, without any thought of what God might desire.

In other words, who is the fool in view? It is the one who believes God exists, but refuses to obey what He says.  And if you read the rest of Psalm 53, that is what the Psalm is all about: the foolishness of disobeying God. When viewed this way, the biggest fools of all are those of us (myself included) who pray to God, and read His Word, but do not do what He says.

This truth is also explained in passages like Matthew 7:24-29 and James 1;22-25.

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