Sour Cream

Lynn and I are attending the "Weekend To Remember" marriage conference this weekend. For lunch we went to my favorite Mexican restaurant across the river in North Augusta, South Carolina. While eating, I realized that I have a growing appreciation for sour cream. I had it on my chimichanga.

Most of my life, sour cream was only acceptable when having a Ruffles chip dipped into it. But, recently...beginning at El Bajio in Carbondale...I've been eating it on Mexican food. It's quite delightful!

Maybe I'll expand further and try it on something else soon. Say....Bar-b-que chicken?

The Church In My Mind

I should be careful to note that things like candles, seating configurations, formats...these really are secondary preference issues. The real meat of what I'm feeling and trying to express in these posts is that we should find ways to bring our church experience into harmony with the rythmns of life.

I fear that our American brand of church has to a great extent compartmentalized people's lives. We have our church life, which happens for an hour and a half on Sunday. And then we have our life life the other six days of the week. And they don't harmonize together because we've created a Sunday morning event that is so un-natural and foreign to the rythmns of our life. In doing so, church in America has become weak and powerless to carry the the life-changing power of Christ into the culture.

I remember an episode several years ago in DuQuoin, IL. There was a man there who was a long-time United Pentecostal pastor. He also owned a used car dealership in town. His dealership was known for peddling lemons and shady business dealing. One time he was challenged by another Christian who asked how he could be a pastor and yet conduct business in such an ungodly way. His response was shocking.

"My life at the dealership and my life at the church are two different things. I don't sell cars the same way I pastor and I don't pastor the same way I sell cars."

Amazing. My understanding of the gospel is that Jesus intended (as demonstrated by his numerous parables of the Kingdom) for the Kingdom of God and life of Christ to permeate the entirety of our being, radically changing the way we do everything in life. Christ's intention is that no facet of our being and lifestyle should remain untouched by the Kingdom.

All of that to say that I want to lead and be part of a body of believers who are fully immersed in Christ. I want to be part of a body of believers who experience God through authentic worship, genuine relationships, and meaningful conversation. I simply don't think the scripted Sunday morning show can take us to that place.

You'll hear more from Brandon in the next post.

I'm Giving Up On "Church" (part 2)

Something struck me Sunday morning. Lynn and I spent part of the evening Saturday trying to figure out where we would go to worship. After an extremely difficult week of dealing with the challenges associated with our relocation (movers, travel, apartment managers, etc.) we were ready to go be among God's people in an environment of authentic worship.

We couldn't decide where to go, so we just went back to the Vineyard church that I'd been to a couple of times. I've enjoyed it the times I've been there, but I've never felt myself overwhelmed by God's presence while there. So we returned.

What I experienced felt strangely odd to me. I say "strangely" odd because what I experienced wasn't out of the ordinary for a church service. But on this morning...it felt very strange...even foreign to me.

Everyone walked into the building and proceeded to their seats all of which were facing forward toward a stage. At the appointed time musicians walked up on the stage and lined up under the spotlights. The front-man said good morning and then we all began the church equivilent of an olympic synchronized sport. We all stood up together on cue. We all began clapping our hands on cue in rythmn to the music. We all stopped on cue and sat down. We listened to a 40 minute speech. At the pastor's cue, people who had been "authorized" to pray lined the front of the stage and people from the congregation were invited to the front to be prayed for. While this was happening, the rest of us were dismissed.

Now...none of this is much different from what happens in most churches on Sunday morning. But for the first time in 20 years of Church life, this felt really weird to me. If this time on Sunday morning was a designated time for the people of God to come worship corporately, why was the worship experience so limited so simply singing, clapping, and listening to a speech.

What if there were people there who connected with God most intimately through painting with oil on a canvas? What if there were people there who connected with God most intimately through writing poetry? Why were we all supposed to stand, face the same direction, and follow cues? I am suddenly having a very difficult time with the typical Sunday morning format. Is this what happened when the Acts Christians came together as the body?

"Being created in the image of God makes us multi-sensory beings. People learn best when all of their senses are engaged. The next generation of churches will avoid the stiff and cerebral and will offer people a multi-sensory experience of God." ~Mike Slaughter; Unlearning Church

I envision a different kind of "church experience." Let me introduce you to Brandon. He's a fictional character who will now tell you about his experience visiting the church that's in my mind.

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It was a Thursday evening. A friend of mine from work invited me to come to church with him; something that I hadn't done since attending Sunday School as a child. We got off work around 5:30 and drove downtown. We parked out on the street, went into one of the downtown buildings that vacated long ago when all of the businesses moved out to the new mall.

We went upstairs and walked into a large 3 room loft. As I walked through the door I was confronted head-on with two things: the sound of dozens of people laughing and talking, and the aroma of a home-cooked meal. I was surprised when my friend said to me, "We start every gathering by having a meal together. Some of the women who are gifted in and passionate about hospitality get here about an hour early to prepare the meal for everyone."

There was probably 75 to 100 people there, and we all ate dinner together. The conversations around the table were wonderful. About 45 minutes later six or seven people washed their dishes and went through a doorway into another room. Soon after they left I heard music being played in the other room. It was a live band and they were top-notch.

About time the music started everyone began moving into the other room which they called "The Sanctuary." It was quite large and didn't look at all like a church sanctuary. Instead it looked like a huge family room. There were couches, loveseats, big comfy chairs, end-tables, coffee tables, lamps. And on the walls were paintings, crosses, ancient iconography, lighted candle sconces. The lighting was down low, the room was mostly candle-lit with a few of the lamps on. The band was off to the side of the room playing music that set a deeply spiritual tone to the room. Moving images were up on a screen near the front of the room.

As the congregation gathered in the sanctuary, a worship time began like I never expected. Some people stood with their hands raised, singing along with the band. Some huddled together in groups of 2 or 3 and prayed for one another and for other needs that they were aware of. A couple of people actually set up a canvas and easel and did an oil painting that depicted what they were experiencing in their relationship with God. One girl sat quietly off to the side writing in a journal. Some people went to special prayer stations built into little alcoves in the wall. One was a "repentance station" and I saw a young guy there write some stuff on a piece of paper and then light it on fire. I then noticed that he was crying as he dipped his hands in a basin of water and then raised them in the air to God.

Everyone kind of did their own thing with God, while the band set the tone of the moment with music and scripture readings.

After about 45 minutes the pastor said a few words, inviting everyone to come together for "The Forum." I didn't know what this was going to be. I assumed it was time for him to preach but I'd never heard the term "Forum" used for this. He then explained that this was the time for conversation and the sharing of experiences we've had in our relationship with Christ or with others. It was kind of like open-mic night. People came and read poetry or journal entries. The painter explained the meaning behind his painting and a lot of people cried as he told how the images on the canvas represented how God had helped him make peace with his earthly father...who had abandoned him years earlier.

After 3 or 4 people shared some things the pastor came back and spoke for about 30 minutes. He read a passage of Scripture, taught the meaning of it, and then explained it's relevance to our life.

The forum ended, some music started back up. Most of the people began slowly making their way out to head home. Several just stayed around talking, drinking coffee. My friend told me that the place usually emptied out around 11:00 or 12:00 at night. And this was church.

He told me that they met like this three times per week. Each night focused on one of what they called the "Core 3." The "Core 3" are the three things this church focuses on: Intimacy, Healing, and Purpose. On Sunday evenings the worship and forum time are built around the theme of intimacy with God through Jesus Christ and intimacy with one another. On Tuesday night the theme is all about healing...mostly emotional and spiritual healing. My friend said that things can get pretty raw on Tuesday nights as people talk and pray through abuse issues, addictions, etc. On Thursday nights the theme is centered around purpose. The forum on this night is designed to help people discover who they are in Christ, how they are gifted and called, and to equip and train them to live out their life purpose.

After my first visit, I feel like this is a place where I can be me - I can be real - and I can experience God in the unique ways that He's built me to experience Him. I'll be back next week, with my cousin Danny.

I'm Giving Up On "Church"

Interesting thing for an ordained elder in the Free Methodist Church to say...isn't it?

Things are finally starting to make some sense to me. About 10 months ago, while pastor of New Prairie Community of Faith in Carbondale, IL I began to descend into a crisis of faith. It wasn't a crisis of my faith in God. It was a crisis of my faith in this thing we call "the church." These words sum up how I was beginning to feel in early 2005.

"You are here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You've felt it your entire life. That there is something wrong. You don't know what it is, but it's there, like a splinter in your mind driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you here." ~Morpheus; The Matrix

Early in 2005 I began to feel that something was seriously wrong. Not something just specific to our church, but something was wrong with what we call "the church" and it was manifesting itself in the way I led the church and in the life of our church body. I began talking about it with various people, but like Morpheus says to Neo, "What you know, you can't explain." Every time I would talk about what I was feeling - whether it was with leaders in our church or other pastors - I would get blank stares and detached nods. I began to feel more and more like I had begun speaking in a foreign language that nobody else could understand. And more and more what I was feeling began to drive me mad like "a splinter in my mind."

Finally, I came to the place over the summer that I could no longer continue leading church in a way that didn't match up with what I was feeling in my soul. I had to walk away. This is when my crisis deepened.

Was I crazy? Had I just totally lost it? How could I hope to plant and pastor another church if I was finding myself believing less and less in church as we define and "do" it. What was happening to me?

Within the last two weeks I have bought and read two books that have blown all of my circuits...in a good way. I couldn't believe what I was reading. It was as if these authors had invaded my brain, sucked out the contents, and put them on paper. These aren't just men on the fringes of churchianity teetering near the edge of insanity. One book is written by the pastor of one the country's leading churches; Mike Slaughter, pastor of Ginghamsburg Church. The other is Neil Cole of Church Multiplication Associates who has started over 700 new churches in 32 states and 23 nations in six years.

The two books I've read are "Unlearning Church" by Mike Slaughter and "Organic Church" by Neil Cole. The thoughts of these men have brought me to an incredible place of peace because I no longer feel as if I'm "losing it." Instead I feel like God has brought me to the brink of something amazing. I feel free...finally...to begin living out as a pastor what I've been feeling in my soul.

I will plant and pastor again, but I've given up on church the way it's done in most American churches today. Never again will I settle for anything less than raw, radical intimacy with Christ lived out through a community of believers who see themselves first and foremost as missionaries to a lost world.

I will never again accept as the norm for believers a life of sin punctuated with sporadic "church attendance." I will never again accept as the norm for believers a disregard for people who are dying without God's grace. I will never again accept as the norm for believers a way of life that spends thousands and thousands of dollars on pleasure, entertainment, and possessions while dropping a left-over dollar or two into an offering plate.

None of these things portray the church of the scripture or the lives of the Christians who radically impacted the world over the past 2000 years. Only men and women of radical love, commitment, and yes obedience have been used to bring radical revival to our world; the kind of revival Christ died for.

My life and ministry as a pastor will be consumed by three things: Intimacy (with God and others), Healing (emotional, mental, spiritual, and physical), and Purpose (discovering and unleashing ourselves to live out the mission for which God has created us.)

For the foreseeable future I am devoting these blog posts to the thoughts that God is giving me though his Word and these two books. Here are five initial statements. Four are from these books and one is from scripture.

"A growing number of people are leaving the institutional church for a new reason. They are not leaving because they have lost faith. They are leaving the church to preserve their faith." ~Reggie McNeil from The Present Future as quoted by Neil Cole in Organic Church.

"Ultimately, transformation is the product of the Gospel. It is not enough to fill our churches; we must transform our world. Society and culture should change if the church has been truly effective." ~Neil Cole; Organic Church

"Why must people wake up early on Sunday, get dressed up and drive to a specific location to sit in rows looking all morning at the back of some guys head while a person they don't know talks to them about the latest prescription of three steps to a better life? Is this experience really supposed to change their lives forever?" ~Neil Cole; Organic Church

"I don't want to lead a mega-church of people who come together to be inspired to live status-quo lives peppered with Judeo-Christian values. I want to empower radical followers of Jesus Christ." ~Mike Slaughter; Unlearning Church

"In that day ten men from every nation will take hold of the hem of one Jew's garment and say "Let us walk with you, for we have heard that God is with you." ~God; Zechariah 8:23

If we're going to give ourselves to being "the church" then let's be the read deal. Let's be the church that Jesus inaugurated; the one that will invade the world with God's grace and love and against which the gates of Hell will never prevail.

What's With All The Noise?

Okay, we've finalized this move to Augusta. Lynn and I both came here knowing that we were entering into a season of "tabernacling" which would involve quiet, stillness, just listening to God and coming to places of deeper intimacy with Him and deeper understanding of Him.

I place a high value on quiet. I hear and experience God the clearest when I am in places of stillness, solitude, and simplicity. Now that we're settling in here I'm finding, with dismay, that we are absolutely surrounded by noise.

The guy who works for me is an incredibly loud person. He is constantly yelling across the hall to me, shattering the peaceful, quiet environment that I'm trying to preserve in my office. When we are sitting together in the same room or in a vehicle his voice is so loud that my ears literally hurt when he talks.

Our apartment is but a few yards away from Interstate 20. All night, the sound of interstate traffic roars outside my window. We have moved into a building full of families with children who have no concern for their neighbors, constantly yelling and running up and down the breezeway right outside of our door. The air condition is incredibly loud. The fan in the bathroom is ridiculously loud. Why am I suddenly surrounded by noise in this time that I so need quiet and stillness?

Lynn and I decided to spend the evening together at Barnes & Noble reading and talking; a place that is typically quiet with soft music and hushed conversations. Tonight, we were surrounded in all directions by loud study groups reading and debating their homework assignments. I couldn't even enjoy a quiet evening of coffee and reading with Lynn.

I'm assuming that this is all part of God's new work in our lives, but it sure seems counter-productive to what I thought we would be experiencing in our time of growing closer to Him.

I've decided that I'm going to have to get up at 5:00 am every morning so I can be at the local Starbucks at 6:00 when they open. At this early hour I'm hoping I'll find the quiet that I need to do the reading and writing that I'm so desperate to do.
I've faithfully gone to Starbucks every morning since moving here and have gotten to know some of the baristas on a first-name basis. I've always just gotten my coffee and left for work. I'm looking forward to actually spending an hour or two there with them to maybe get to know them as friends.

Tomorrow morning will be my first morning with such an early start. We'll see how it goes. This means that I'll be needing to head off to bed in about 15 minutes. So...that's all the writing for tonight!

Closure

Hello everyone! Wow...it's been a long time since I made a post. Seems life has been really, really busy. It's Monday, October 10 and in two days I catch a flight to Illinois where I'll spend a few days brining closure to that chapter of our life.

I'll arrive late Wednesday evening. The movers are coming to pack our stuff Thursday. They're coming back to load the moving truck Friday. We'll then go over sometime Friday evening to sign the deed on our house for the closing on Monday. Saturday I have the honor of helping conduct a wedding for two very special people at New Prairie; Joe & Amber. We'll spend some time with my folks Saturday afternoon. Then Sunday morning we'll get in the car and drive together back to Augusta. Hopefully, if all goes well, our moving truck will arrive sometime Tuesday.

The past two months have been soooo long. Being apart from Lynn and trying to start this new chapter without her here has really been wearing on me. We're finally bringing closure to our time in Illinois, but to be honest, I don't know what to look forward to. I feel like we've come here for one reason...just to get a paycheck every other week. I don't know what to look for down the road. That's kind of difficult. I'm the kind of person who needs to feel like I'm always moving toward something...some purpose...some calling...some destiny. When I don't see anything on the horizon, it's easy for me to begin despairing over how quickly life passes and how short of a time we really have to make our days matter.

I've resumed working on my family tree (an on-and-off project for about 15 years) and have been reminded of that fact over and over again as I see the lives of my ancestors represented by nothing more than a few scraps of paper hidden away at a courthouse somewhere. We're born, we die...it all happens so quickly and I wonder how much of that time we actually spend "living." Does our time on this earth really have any lasting impact? Thankfully it's almost that time of year for "It's A Wonderful Life" to be on television like a hundred times. Sounds like I need to see it again.

One life-long dream that I've had is to write a book. Last week I spent a whole Sunday sitting at the Barnes & Noble Starbucks writing and by the time I finished I had written the introduction and first chapter of "Magnetic North." The title won't make any sense to you without reading the book, so buy it when it comes out! :-) I'll give you a hint: Zechariah 8:23 "In those days ten men from all languages and nations will take firm hold of one Jew by the hem of his robe and say, 'let us go with you, because we have heard that God is with you.'"

Shortly after Lynn gets here we're participating in Weekend To Remember which is a marriage enrichment conference. Should be a good time. Also, the Friday after we get back here we're going to see Jars of Clay, Chris Rice, and Sarah Groves in concert. Should be a good show.

Pray for us as we end one chapter and begin another. Not sure where this chapter will lead us.