Posts Tagged ‘spiritual life’

How the Evangelicals Lost Christmas

Tuesday, December 13th, 2011

This Christmas season in evangelical churches all over the United States you’ll be able to hear amazing well written sermons about how Jesus was born in a manager, lived a perfect sinless life, died on the cross to atone for our sins and arose on the third day proving he had defeated sin and death. While all of these things are biblically true they have nothing to do with Christmas, except for the born in a manger part.

We evangelicals have lost Christmas. We are so caught up in the atonement that we forget the incarnation. Even in our Christmas sermons we blow by Christmas to get to Easter, because that’s the good news after all. Or is it? Jesus sent John’s disciples back to him with the message that the good news was being proclaimed (Matthew 11:5). The message that Jesus proclaimed wasn’t that he was going to die to save us from our sins (Although this is very good news and I don’t mean to minimize it). The message that Jesus proclaimed was that the Kingdom of God was near (Mark 1:14 and many others). The Kingdom of God was manifested in the life of Jesus.

The incarnation is about communication. The incarnation is about displaying a life lived in the Kingdom of God. Jesus lived his life in full submission to the Father and invites us into that life, the life that the Apostle John termed eternal life. Christmas is about God “making his dwelling among us” (John 1:14). The incarnation shows us how to live in relationship with God. The incarnation is a model for our lives. Then on the cross Jesus redeemed us restoring our relationship with God and after the resurrection he ascended to heaven and sent the Holy Spirit to empower us to live that life.

As Christians, we’re called to live our lives from the perspective of the incarnation. The community we’re forming in Ann Arbor is all about this kind of incarnational living. Agape Ann Arbor is a community experiencing and expressing God’s love as modeled by Jesus in the incarnation. We would love for you to join our community. There are several ways you can be a part of this incarnational ministry. You can contact us to find out about our next meeting. You can join our prayer team and commit to praying for us. You can support our ministry financially.

More importantly, however, you can make the choice this Christmas to reclaim what we’ve lost. During this Christmas season, don’t skip to Easter. We will celebrate the glorious resurrection of our messiah soon enough. This Christmas, celebrate his incarnation.

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Christian’s in a Zoo

Tuesday, November 22nd, 2011

A couple of months ago on one of our trips to the zoo we had the opportunity to pet a learn about an opossum (which we found out is different than a possum). We see opossums all over the Midwest. In particular, the little critters love to dig through our garbage and make a mess of things. An interesting fact I learned about opossums is that they’re not originally from the Midwest. They migrated here from Central America. As immigrants to our region of the world they’re not well adapted to our climate. Opossums in the Midwest are often very thin compared to their relatives to the south and the damaging effects of frostbite can be seen on many of them.

We’re a lot like the opossums in the midwest. We weren’t created to live in a fallen world. We were created to live in a sin-free world in a close relationship with God. We’re, therefore, not well adapted to live in this environment and the damaging effects of sin affect our lives. They can be seen in the anxiety we experience, or in our struggles to maintain healthy relationships. We all carry the scars of sin like midwestern opossums cary the scars of frostbite.

In the zoo, opossums are protected from the dangers of the Midwestern climate by zookeepers who love and care for them. In Christ, we have access to a similar kind of protection. God loves and cares for us. By sending Jesus God created a zoo for people. In the zoo, we are free from the power of sin. We can live in a close relationship with God. Jesus’s death on the cross opens the gates to the zoo and allows us in. To enter the zoo we walk through the gate by trusting that Jesus’s sacrifice paid for our admission. We stay in the zoo by choosing to live our lives the way Jesus lived his.

We all belong in a zoo. Are you in the zoo?

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Defining Discipleship

Saturday, October 9th, 2010

What is discipleship?

This is the question that I’ve been wrestling with for the last two months. As chaplain at Southfield Christian school, I’ve had to look at this through new eyes. In general, we all tend to define discipleship as “growing in Christ-likeness” or other similar language. In the church world, this is usually equated with a Christian Education or Small Group program. The presupposition is that these venues will create environments through which the Holy Spirit will work to transform our lives or teach us how to be more open and submissive to what the Holy Spirit is doing in us.

There are two problems with this approach. One, it leaves the definition of discipleship so vague that virtually anything could be defined as success. Two, it focuses on academics and observable behavior rather than an internal transformation of values and attitude.

Sitting in a Christian School looking to disciple students, I’ve seen these problems first-hand. Without a clear definition of what “growing in Christ-likeness” looks like there is no way to effectively evaluate the discipleship efforts of the organization. Furthermore, students that spend their entire school-day in an environment that focuses on academics and observable behavior, in the aggregate, don’t look any different than any other group of church-going students. This leads me to one of two conclusions. Either our general approach in the United States to discipling young people is incredibly effective and getting repeatable sustainable results or it is completely ineffective and getting repeatable sustainable results.

Unfortunately, based on my observation of American teenagers’ attitudes, values, and propensity to dismiss or justify sin issues, I’m inclined to believe the latter. The first step to improving the situation is redefining discipleship. We’re still working on a definition that communicates clearly and provides a way to evaluate the systems and programs we implement, but here is the concept around which that definition will develop at Southfield Christian School. Discipleship is leading another to grow in their love for God and others.

What do you think? Is this definition helpful to you? Do you think that this definition is a good foundation for building effective discipleship ministries?

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Posted in Bible & Theology, Christian School Ministry, The Life of a Christ-follower, leadership | 3 Comments »

The Fourth Place

Tuesday, July 20th, 2010

Recently the idea of the “third place” has become popular in ministry circles. I’ll try to give a quick definition of the concept here. In the US, we live in three places; home, work, and the third place. There are a variety of expression of the third place; the local coffee shop (think Friends), the corner bar (think Cheers), the local lodge (think The Flintstones). The third place is where people go to socialize. It’s the hub location for their “tribe.”

In ministry circles there have been a lot of conversation about how we should make the church the “third place.” This, theoretically, is a good idea. If people are spending their “third place” time at the church they can connect to the community and grow spiritually.

I’m a little leery of this idea. If I’m spending all my time at home, work, and church, when do I engage with people who aren’t Christ-followers? Yes, I know work is a good place to do that. The people there are stuck with me. I will also concede that the workplace is part of our “mission field.” But is it the most effective place to share Christ? I find the conversations that most often turn to spiritual things are not at work. They’re at third places with third place people. If the church were to become my third place then when would I have these conversations?

I think maybe the church should be the fourth place. We should carve time out of our schedules to engage at church and in church activities but not let it monopolize our time outside of work and home. Prioritize church but don’t make church your third place. Find a place where you can naturally build relationships with people who don’t know Christ and use that “third place” time as mission time. Here are a couple of examples:

• Coach soccer (or whatever)
• Study martial arts
• Join a book club

Don’t make church your third place. You’ll miss way too much of what God is doing outside the walls of the church building. Besides, if the church is people, can the church really be a third place or any place at all?

What are some other third places where you’ve been able to share Christ and see God working?

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Twitter-God

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010

A lot of people think that connecting with God is like connecting with someone through Facebook. You do a search and find God’s Facebook page. Then request Him as a friend. Facebook sends God an email asking Him whether or not He’ll accept you or not. You presume that He will. But you don’t know. He might block you and you’re never really sure if he’s going to block you or not.

God’s not like Facebook. He’s more like Twitter. You find his Twitter page and start following Him. There’s no waiting for approval. We automatically start hearing from Him as He sends out tweets. He Tweets regularly through the Bible and the Holy Spirit. He’s always communicating, always sharing. We can log on and read His tweets or ignore them.

That’s the way most people treat twitter and the way most people treat God. We log on when we’re bored. Check out what’s going on. Or we just tweet incessantly and ignore what everyone else is saying. We talk at God and call it prayer but don’t take time to listen to Him and hear what He has to say. Like Twitter, to really appreciate God you’ve got to take some time to stop tweeting and start reading, stop talking and start listening.

Take some time today and make a point to listen to God. He’s got a lot to say to you.

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Subcreation

Thursday, June 3rd, 2010

My daughter has a new favorite game, “The Fairy Game.” It’s a game created by Disney to go along with their move Tinker Bell. In the game you create a fairy and fly around Pixie Hollow helping the get ready to bring summer to the mainland.

My little girl’s favorite part of the game is creating the new fairies. She currently has 23 fairies that she has created and printed that we’ve put in a binder for her. It’s not just creating fairies though. She loves to create. Her favorite thing to do at home is create art projects whether painting, molding play dough, or gluing random things together. At church and in preschool her favorite part is craft time. One of her favorite destinations is the Detroit Institute of Arts because she love doing the art projects on the weekends.

But it’s not just my daughter that loves to create. Deep inside, I think we all love to create. Some people create businesses and organizations that do great things in the world. Some people create inventions that make our lives easier. Some people create beautiful works of art. Some people create wonderful stories that capture our imaginations. I love to create through this blog hopefully helping people draw closer to God and become better leaders. I also create through my research as I learn new things and communicate them through articles and my upcoming dissertation.

J. R. R. Tolkien calls this desire to create subcreation. He talks about it in his essay “On Fairy Stories” that you can find in The Tolkien Reader (it’s out of print so check your local library). Tolkien argues that subcreation is part of the image of God. God is a creative being who has created beings in his image that love to create. Now, only God can truly create by creating something out of nothing, but we can create by taking what he has creating and manipulating it to become something different and new. We create because our Father is creative. Creating is one of the ways that we display the image of God that is in us. Part of the way we worship and glorify God is to create.

What about you? What do you love to create? How are you displaying the image of God through the creative drive in you?

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I Can’t Keep Quiet

Thursday, May 20th, 2010

I got a bad case of laryngitis yesterday. In a sick way I was kind of happy about it. I was looking forward to blogging about all the great spiritual insights I gained by spending a day unable to talk. I wanted to have a cool, deep, spiritual post like the ones I often read. The only thing I learned is that I can’t keep quiet. Even without a voice I had to talk.

Yet for me, that is a spiritual insight. I admire the people that have great spiritual depth. I admire the people that have stories of deep spiritual experiences. I admire the people that can spend hours in silence alone with God and learn deep fascinating things.

But I’m not one of those people. My experience with God will never be like theirs. Nor should it. I need to focus on growing closer to God by accepting and embracing who I am. I am a communicator and I need people. I need to connect with people. I see God in my interactions with others. I see God in people. I see God in his image that he has placed in others.

I don’t know how you best connect with God. I don’t know when it is that you see him but remember, you are uniquely created in the image of God and however you connect with God is the right way for you. Embrace it. Enjoy it. Become all that God has created you to be through that connection.

Where do you most often see God?

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Fiscal Spirituality

Tuesday, February 16th, 2010

A couple of days ago @human3rror posted an interesting tweet.  “Look. If you’re fiscally responsible and your current job can’t pay the bills, then you need another job. It’s not a spiritual decision.”

I appreciate the sentiment behind the tweet but I have to disagree with the statement as it stands.  Many of us try to separate our fiscal responsibility from our spirituality.  But that’s simply inaccurate.  Every fiscal decision is a spiritual.  As a matter of fact, every decision is a spiritual decision.  Every thing you do, every choice you make has spiritual ramifications.

With regards to @human3rror’s comment, though his reasoning was faulty, his application is spot on.  It is not honoring God to stay in a job that cannot support you or your family.  The responsible, wise, godly choice is to put yourself in the best fiscal situation possible based on your experience, education, and ability.  It is not godly to stay in a bad situation when God is providing you a better opportunity.

Now, with that said, I know that right now jobs are scarce, particularly here in Michigan.  If you’re stuck in a job that can’t support you and you don’t have another opportunity available to you, be faithful to God; continue to work as if you were doing it for God, because you are.  And remember, every decision you make has spiritual ramification.  Do your best to make the decision that will honor God in everything you do.

Where have you seen people try to separate their spiritual life from another aspect of their lives?

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