When The Knock Out Punch Seems Delivered, The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail.

Yesterday I had the privilege of bringing the message to a community of Christ-followers a few miles north of us. We've come know some of the people there and were looking forward to seeing a couple we'd gotten to know pretty well who'd recently been through a devastating attack to their homestead and farm. God gave me a message I knew would be a comfort to them and anyone else going through the unthinkable. I wanted to refresh and encourage them that El Roi, (the God Who Sees Me) in Genesis 16:13, was going to walk with them through this.

Early last Wednesday Bob and Lisa were awakened in the middle of the night by a loud bang and a vehicle leaving quickly. Something wasn't right. Upon going outside to see what was happening they were assaulted by the terrible sight of one of their two barns being engulfed in flames. The fire was roaring leaving no chance to extinguish it. Soon, the second barn would be destroyed too.Worse still, it had been deliberately set by the hand of a family member.

Added to their horror, was the reality that in one barn they'd housed all the tools Bob collected over the years and used in his business. In the other barn was furniture, personal records, and family stuff they were storing until a new home was built beginning in a few weeks. They'd been temporarily residing in a modular home across the street. In other words, they lost almost everything in a few minutes. You can imagine what it must to have been like to stand there knowing what was happening. And their realization that one of their own kin did this deliberate act of violence and contempt, could have been a knock-out punch.

But it wasn't. These folks are resilient, hardworking, do-what-it-takes-to-get-it-done people. They shed tears and felt the shock of what was happening for sure, but the very next day, they took one of the most beautiful actions I've ever heard of.

They decided the evil one would not succeed in trying to destroy them. Bob told me, as his barns were burning down, he said directly to the devil he could go ahead and take all his tools and furniture, but God would restore it seven to ten-fold. In other words, "you will not destroy us because we belong to Christ!"
Then the very next day, he and Lisa found two very large pieces of wood, and decided they'd put together a cross. They thought the best place to put it would be right in the middle of the scorched earth where the barns had been.

So they dug a hole, built the cross together --which turned out to be 16 feet tall and very heavy -- and drug it slowly across the road where it stands today as a testimony to the reality of Christ in the midst of devastating attack.

The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail!

They said yesterday because the barns were built in the 19th century, and had been told of the very real possibility of being placed on the National Historic Register, they would do everything they could to rebuild them just as they were.

The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail!

They also testified to the goodness of God in that the fire came right up to where their berry bushes were, and damaged none of them.These folks are gradually building a farming business too. They would've had to start from scratch and miss out on needed income from this growing season. Bob also told me he had more work for his business to do than he could handle and had to add new employees last week. He also said friends in the business offered him the use of their tools as well.

The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail!

Because these people are followers of Jesus and know forgiveness is the life they are called to, they  must come to grips with forgiving this person in their family. Both of them acknowledged it will take awhile, but they want to do what Jesus has called them to as forgiven people.

 The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail!

I have to say my own load was lightened yesterday by their courage in the midst of sorrow, pain, and loss. I could see through their example a way I should view the trials and challenges we are currently facing. While our trying circumstances are different, we have felt in the last 6 weeks as if Satan's was attempting a knock-out punch for the McDermott's. But Jesus showed me through the words of these two not-gonna-quit followers of his that because the cross and resurrection of Christ prevails, I must do the same in attitude and action as them. The fight goes on and my Lord has overcome the world, including my world.

Talking to them was an unexpected gift. Their spirit and grit left me feeling hopeful, even refreshed a little. I told them we'd love to help in the clean-up or anything else they need. I hope they let us. For now, their church has gathered around them, and will fight side by side through love, giving and service until God is glorified. They will show forth generosity in all manner of ways, and I suspect Christ will marshal His followers who hear the story of the cross planted where two barns burned to the ground

The Cross and Resurrection of Christ Prevail!

The Kingdom Does Work If It's Actually Tried.

For the last year, Tricia and I have had the blessing and privilege as counselors to walk alongside of a couple who worked through a very sad and painful situation many Christian couples have encountered. They had to trudge through considerable pain and anguish as they headed toward healing together. These folks have been dedicated to the cause Christ for decades, and the fruit they've produced shows the love they had for people. Yet one of them stumbled and very hard work had to be done. They never gave up.

Last night, Jim LaMontagne, Tricia and I got to be part of a celebration of restoration and healing for them in the community they serve. Grace abounded. Mature men and women gathered in solidarity and gratitude for all that Christ had done in their midst to overcome the satanic schemes aimed at this couple and the community. As we worshiped, gave testimony, cried and laughed together, heard a word from God, and gathered around our friends to pray for them, I was struck once again that when we as followers of Jesus actually live the way of the Kingdom with one another, healing, reconciliation and restoration is the outcome.

Putting in the hard work of forgiving and rebuilding relationships is daunting. Doing so means confronting aching fear, and working through deep hurt or betrayal. Trust has to be found and rebuilt. People have to feel safe that when the unthinkable happens and whole communities are effected, the necessary due diligence has been put forth for them to lower their guard. It's all a matter of integrity, faith and spiritual maturity.

These folks did it. It took a year, but they did it.

A sadder reality is, if we don't live the Kingdom way with one another, we easily apply the "one-strike-you're out" rule, especially with our leaders, but not exclusively so. It was in the church I first heard the phrase "we shoot our wounded." In my 25 years as a Christian counselor, I've seen the vile devastation wrought by utter meanness from one Christian toward another, usually with a head held high. Churches are filled with walking wounded. As my friend and imagine cohort Jim likes to say: "we become self-appointed fruit inspectors," always measuring our brethren by standards we can't or don't live ourselves. In those instances, we ignore the rule and way of the Kingdom by pursuing our own selfish inclinations. Friendships, marriages, families, and churches split over such selfishness.

But, last year and last night showed me how Christians should work through the unthinkable with one another. It wasn't perfect or pretty, but it was right.

Here's what I've learned about how the Kingdom actually works in such tough situations when folks actually step up and try hard:

You head full into the pain together.You make sure you have a firm grasp of the facts, not hearsay or self-righteous gossip. That takes time; the dust needs to settle for truth to appear. Ask lot's of questions. Keep your wits about you. Work to share honestly from the heart. Listen hard for the heart of the other, especially the one who has stumbled and is being mangled by shame, guilt, fear, regret, and even self-hatred. Listen well also to everyone drawn in and wounded by what happened. Pray for wisdom and choose to love all the time. Don't jump to conclusions. Persist toward healing and reconciling if the people involved open. Be patient because there will be frightfully high emotions, confusion, anger, and doubt peppered throughout the task. Look to make peace. If and when the matter is resolved, celebrate joyously, and refuse to let the adversary open up old wounds or resentments. It is finished. Keep it that way. You may also have to mourn the loss of brethren who refuse to walk in the Kingdom way because of what happened, even if it didn't happen directly to them. Human sin costs.

The Kingdom principles of grace, healing, reconciliation and restoration are not practiced enough. They are talked about, but when a bomb gets dropped in the middle of things, or people have to wade waist deep through a persisting and painful mess, many abandon the very hard task of living through them, and not giving up when the way is rough. Wisdom, graciousness, and courage disappear. We lose much when we allow that to happen. Moving on without making the effort God requires of us is actually falling backwards.into darkness. It's never worth it.

I've not always lived the Kingdom way in my relationships. In fact, I've failed more than once.Not proud of it. My spiritual immaturity has been a thief and a liar. I'm still growing in this regard. But I'll say with assurance, with grace and good-natured courage, and the Holy Spirit's patient reminding, I'll keep making progress. Last night reaffirmed for me the Kingdom way is the only way that brings real life and hope.

imagine/Northampton's OPEN TABLE Opportunity.

Sometimes frustration initiates an earnest search for change, doesn't it.

If you've followed imagine/Northampton on Facebook in the last few days, https://www.facebook.com/pages/imaginenorthampton/64020924946?ref=stream, you're aware of our visit with Jon Katov of the Open Table ministry, theopentable.org/, Saturday and yesterday. His being here in Northampton stemmed from frustration a few of us have been experiencing because of what felt an ineffective approach to helping the poor and homeless who populate Northampton. Dave Sweeney took the initiative to do an Internet search, and found some options. I looked at them and agreed with him the Open Table was something we needed to look into. Dave took the lead in making the connection. Happily, Jon was going to be on the East Coast last week, and we met. He also joined us yesterday at imagineWORSHIP, and told his compelling story of how God set him free and drew him into helping the poor transform their lives.

Jon is a true believer in Christ, and in the travesty of how the poor fare in America. He's determined to be a part of the solution and travels hither and yon motivating the Church to adopt a different approach. He talks much of how Christians have adopted the transactional model of helping the poor: write a check to a ministry to the poor; hand them a buck or two at an intersection; give them a meal or money to get one; offer them a bed for the night in a shelter; give them used clothing, blankets, etc. All these transactions are well-meant, and handle an immediate need, but they do little or nothing long-term to help lift poor folks from their predicament -- band-aids never set broken legs, or mend broken hearts, no matter how genuinely offered

Jon says the Gospel, by its very nature calls for transformation. He makes, with great conviction and passion, a strong case for gathering weekly around an individual (termed a brother or sister), or family who demonstrates the will and volitional potential to overcome the many obstacles enmeshing them in the devastating cycle of poverty (including working poverty). He references Jesus's words from Matthew 25:35-40:

35 For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, 36 I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me.’ 37 Then the righteous will answer him, saying, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you drink? 38 And when did we see you a stranger and welcome you, or naked and clothe you? 39 And when did we see you sick or in prison and visit you?’ 40 And the King will answer them, ‘Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.’

The transformational investment Jon has experienced and champions comes in the form of gathering a team from collaborators in the church and local community, people with practical skills, networks and resources, and having them dedicate a year to help an individual or family tackle their obstacles to get up on their feet: http://theopentable.org/table-model-2/ .For most of these people, they've never experienced having a team of folks gather around them to share the burden of changing their lives. Jon says most of the poor people he's encountered are so weighed down with repeated failure and crippling shame that they have no way of working through the multiple problems they'll have to address to get free. It's utterly overwhelming. To not have to do that alone; to have help with legal, medical, criminal, vocational, housing, educational and relational problems is monumental for them.

We also find compelling the notion that if we do this, and can build a team of collaborators -- not necessarily Christians, by the way -- from folks in the community, we have the wonderful opportunity to create relationships with people with whom we have no substantial relationships. We become partners with them in helping Northampton's working poor and homeless break free. We get to know folks who get to know us as friends working together on a common goal. Jon says he's been amazed at the generosity of people who don't get a chance to give back in the way an Open Table affords. They want to, but don't know how either. imagine/Northampton would be able to initiate the opportunity as well as partner in the work. Wow!

Also, Jon is offering us the chance to be the first church in New England to adopt the Open Table transformational model. We didn't realize that. They're happening all over the country, but not yet here. What if?

As I mentioned, we've been looking for a way to make a bigger difference in the lives of the poor in Northampton.. We work at the Interfaith Shelter, the Northampton Survival Center, and have relationships with many of the "regular" homeless on the street. It's just not transforming lives to any substantial degree.

We really want do do that on our watch.

So as we listen to God and one another this week, please pray for us. Ask God to make it clear we are to become part of the Open Table movement or not. I need to tell you we are intrigued, and some of us are ready to get going, so we're not cool to the idea at all. There will important practical decisions to make and a substantial commitment for some of us, so we need to proceed with wisdom. We know imagine/Northampton is not to become the Open Table ministry; there are many other things God has for us to do as well. But this is the best format we've encountered for helping people heal and find their way back into a fruitful life. We also see the remarkable potential for opening people to Jesus, just by helping them find their way. Our Kingdom mission embraces the Open Table idea, so it feels right. We just need to know God is calling us for such a time and opportunity as this.Our Leadership Team will meet tomorrow night, and it will be on the agenda.

If God tells you anything he wants us to be aware of, please don't hesitate to let me know.

You know where I am.

Simple Missional Questions to Ask Ourselves All the Time.

1. How in your life do you see folks around you encountering Jesus through you?

2. How do you incarnate his love so that people in your sphere of influence want to know him?

3. Would anyone be inspired to follow him by the way you live?

4. Besides indirect evidence of your religious or spiritual practices (going to church, praying, reading the Scriptures, etc.) does anyone not a Christian know why you follow him?

Take frequent time to reflect on these questions and listen for his "still, small voice." Thank him for evidence of him working through you if he has, but also ask him to "make you able" if you've little evidence of his working through you missionally of late or perhaps ever.

The hour is late.

Experiencing Communitas.

Last night at imagine's inward/Outward Missional Formation Cohort, we began a conversation around what it means to experience communitas together. According to Alan Hirsch in The Forgotten Ways:

"...communitas describe[s] the dynamic of the Christian community inspired to overcome their instincts to huddle...and instead to form themselves around a common mission that calls them into a dangerous journey to unknown places--a mission that calls the church to shake off its collective securities and to plunge into the world of action where its members experience disorientation and marginalization, but also where they encounter God and one another in a new way."

Michael Frost in Exiles writes:

"Communitas...is a community infused with a grand sense of purpose, one that lies outside its internal reality and constitution. It's the kind of community that "happens" to people in actual pursuit of a common vision of what could be. It involves movement and it describes the experience of togetherness that only really happens among a group of people actually engaging in a mission outside itself."

Our discussion moved around what people experience in trying to be missional and helping others open to Christ. It was a good beginning. After everyone had left and I was reflecting on our conversation, the thought struck me that church for most people does not expose them to the depth and richness of communal experience formed around the challenging adventure of Kingdom mission, and how it forges a deep, shared identity, especially when the going is tough.

Many Christians have experienced small group fellowship where the support and relational interplay were rewarding and meaningful, but not particularly embodying a "grand sense of purpose."  Some have been involved in invigorating church-related projects. Others have been on Mission's trips that were profound, and opened them to the possibility of radical discipleship. But, for most, most of the time, church became rather quickly predictable, and routine, not the "pursuit of a common vision of what could be.". I've known very few Christians who's following of Jesus often involved, "a common mission that calls then into a dangerous journey to unknown places," or where they were "plunge[d] into the world of action where its members experience disorientation and marginalization, but also where they encounter God and one another in a new way."

Sadly, Church can end up being a heart-deadening institutional, programmatic obligation with little expectation of adventure or a vision worth dying for. If you don't believe me ask the Christian men you know how much Church inspires them to repeatedly follow Christ into the mess of people's lives or the pain of the world. Or, people settle for a satisfying experience far less than God invites them to join him in because they have an ample supply spiritual goods and services which keep them occupied: the worship is great, the preaching is edifying, the kids have a great children's ministry; there is all kinds of opportunity for Bible study, volunteering and fellowship. Church life is good.

Because communitas has been so little experienced, I think it feels utterly foreign to people, even unrealistic. I get a sense that most of us have little to relate to in the term because church we've lived has not been communitas. It also became very clear that "normal" life was hard enough, and people needed seasons of healing before they could even consider a more adventurous Christian way. That's not to be overlooked...a wounded heart needs ample time to heal and restore. But when it does, will the church inspire people to anything more than easy-does-it, American Christendom, and with a little sin management thrown in?

Where's the opportunity to live an heroic life together; one reflecting the unparalleled greatness and beauty of the Messiah we say we follow and serve. Where's the ennobling task which elevates the heart beyond safety and security? Who's offering the sustained opportunity to really live and die in the rigorous service of the Gospel and the Kingdom reign of God? Where's the compelling STORY which ignites passion and a do-whatever-it-takes communal ethos?

I have to say I long for, and have longed for since I was a teenager, this kind of authentic, give-it-all-you-got for-a-cause-which-elevates-the-human-spirit-and-reflects-the-heart-of-God focus. I also have to say I've only experienced glimmers of it, but I've truly tasted it, and want much more before my last breath.

I believe imagine/Northampton has the best shot God has offered me to realize Kingdom communitas around the most important mission in the universe: helping people discover and follow the God who is more than they imagine.The imagine/Northampton people I serve with are growing hearts for this Kingdom mission. They are serious about following Jesus this way.

I love that! It inspires me. As long as I have a say in it, we're gonna keep heading in this direction.

What about you?

My Third Spiritual Paradigm Shift.

 

def:"paradigm shift": a change from one way of thinking to another. It's a revolution, a transformation, a sort of metamorphosis. It just does not happen, but rather it is driven by agents of change.

 Another use of the word paradigm is in the sense of Weltanschauung (German for world view). For example, in social science, the term is used to describe the set of experiences, beliefs and values that affect the way an individual perceives reality and responds to that perception. Social scientists have adopted the Kuhnian phrase "paradigm shift" to denote a change in how a given society goes about organizing and understanding reality.

Recently, I experienced a spiritual epiphany. Based on noticing I was spending more and more time studying what it means to be missional in following Jesus, including how to help others at imagine do the same (the inward/OUTWARD Spiritual Formation Workshop, for instance), I realized I was experiencing a paradigm shift similar to two previous shifts which revolutionized my Christian worldview. Each shift has deepened my understanding of walking in the way of Jesus. They've altered my reality to the degree I could not return to what how I'd lived before.

Paradigm Shift #1: Becoming a Christian.

When Christ opened me to the reality "he is," my life took a turn. A true metamorphosis had occurred. I was a truly born a second time, a "new creation in Christ," full of wonder in the new world the eyes of my heart saw for the first time. While I was still a jazz musician living in Boston with friends I'd come with from Albuquerque, I'd found something which remained very foreign to them (ultimately separating us), and utterly new to me. My life's trajectory was now altered in ways, at the time, I couldn't even imagine. I had no idea what lie ahead, but I knew an encompassing new reality was opened to me, a strange and magnificent new way of being tugging me inexorably into the enticing unknown. Many years later in my second spiritual paradigm shift, I'd recognize whispers of this new way were near very me, but I couldn't make them out.

Paradigm Shift #2: Inner Healing, Learning Listening Prayer, the Spiritual Gifts, and Retreat Ministry.

At about age 35, the Holy Spirit deemed it the appointed time to jostle my world. I was not in on that conference call. Nevertheless, change was foisted upon me. First, it came in the form of entering into a year-long journey of substantial inner healing. I had father issues mucking up my emotional works and putting severe limits on my confidence as a man. I went kicking and screaming, but I went and Jesus painstakingly unbound me. I experienced what it was like to not have emasculating fear and self-hatred.

Soon after my year of unbuckling, my brother-in-law, Steve, called to rave about a book he'd read concerning prayer. I've always known him to be a man of prayer, so when a man of prayer tells you a book has revolutionized his prayer life, not to mention his painting (he's a world-class artist), you pay attention. I bought the book, Dialoguing With God by Mark & Patti Virkler, read it and began to get up in the wee hours to listen to God with my journal in hand. What happened to me was as monumental as my conversion. I heard God's "still, small voice," and he told me things about himself and me that opened to me intimacy with him. Another deepening happened and I've never been the same. In fact to me, listening prayer is part of the "normal Christian life."

About that same time, my brother, Stacy (who is a pastor in Albuquerque with my sister-in-law, KayKay), called me out of the blue saying that God wanted me to be baptized in the Spirit. Such baptism had never been a burning issue with me. Tricia spoke in tongues, but it was always a quiet and intimate, personal prayer language. No big deal to me really. So, he visited. We talked for a day or two. On the day he was to leave, he and Tricia prayed over me. Nothing happened, so I went out to the backyard by myself and told God if this was something he wanted me to have, I wanted it. Voila! All this stuff bubbled up from somewhere, and I was hearing sounds coming from my mouth new, exotic and wonderful. Not only that, just after I was prayed for in church for the gift to teach, and in one way or another I've been doing so for 25+ years. I now experienced an intimacy with, and trust of the Holy Spirit beyond what had been a part of my life. A new reality opened to me, changing my spiritual awareness.

In 1988, Tricia and I, through another God-breathed set of circumstances, were invited to take the Elders from our church (The Barn) on a retreat. We'd never led a retreat. We knew how to listen to God, so we listened and put together a 3-day retreat from what we knew, and God blew their socks off. We were invited to take residence at the Center For Renewal, and gradually lead the church through Listening in Christ Retreats. In that same time, our counseling and spiritual direction ministries were birthed with no initiating from us, and we witnessed God use us to help people heal and experience the intimate love of Jesus for them.

My entire world would focus on such work through the late 80's and up to 2008. It was how I experienced the Presence of God most clearly, and what I saw as the way Christians were to live. Before my own healing and introduction to the contemplative spiritual disciplines, none of what I spent those 20 years doing was on the radar screen.

Paradigm Shift #3: Taking on the missional way of following Jesus and being church.

In the late fall of 2007, I came down with shingles and for almost two months was flat on my back. While the pain was very unpleasant, the fatigue was numbing, except . . .

As is my wont sometimes, I will purchase books which seem to leap to my attention, even if I have no express interest at first. In each spiritual paradigm shift, God has enticed me to books which would turn out to be pivotal with what he was doing in me or would do through me. So on the nightstand I already had Frost and Hirsch's The Shaping of Things to Come, Erwin McManus's An Unstoppable Force, and Greg Cole's Organic Church. I don't know why I had them. Keep in mind, church planting had never been an aspiration of mine. So I opened the books because I needed something to occupy my mind, and I felt unmistakably nudged to do so. The idea of living a missional way of life exploded in my head from there. I was hooked.

Within months, I and others became convinced we were supposed to plant a church in Northampton and take up the missional way of being church. None of us had ever done that before. It was compelling and 3 families voted with their feet to head north.

It has not ended with getting to Northampton. My paradigmatic shift has gone has gone further. Now, I can't imagine returning to my former way of walking with Jesus, or being part of a church ministry. Neither were pointless or unfruitful. I had rich times with dedicated lovers of Jesus. It's just that my eyes have been opened as profoundly as I when knew Christ was real at my conversion, or as I heard him speak to me the first time in listening prayer. My spiritual world morphed and became both unfamiliar and as if I'd been made for this new iteration.

I understand so much more about Jesus and his lion-hearted, revolutionary, subversive, counter-cultural, redemptive mission, what the Kingdom is and how it actually works, what the Church is supposed to be in the world, and how all believers are missionaries by definition whether they embrace it or not. I see church structure and culture differently, how leadership is supposed to work, and how we are to break through walls that stigmatize, neglect, oppress and divide peoples. Justice and love and freedom fill my thoughts in a way they never did. Love is the means by which people open to Jesus and choose to give themselves away in life-giving service.

While I still counsel and do spiritual direction, I view my role as a Spiritual Formation Catalyst in a more pastoral, mentoring, discipling way. I want to equip people who cross over imagine/Northampton's threshold and stick, to be fully engaged and devoted followers of Jesus their Lord and King. I now spend time getting to know and helping folks I'd shy away from a few years ago. I see their humanity, not their societal tag. I never did that before. I want to influence the community for the Kingdom.

Each paradigm shift has been God's work. Each links together providing a spiritual foundation for what he summoned me to next. Without each, I'd not have found any of what he called me to.
In reality, I don't know if the third is my last shift this side of heaven. I know seeing Jesus and his glory will pretty much be the zenith. What a curious and remarkable (for someone like me), journey it has all been. I foresaw none of it.

Perhaps my most fervent hope is that what these shifts were set to accomplish in and through me will do just that and more, so as the books are closed on my life, I fulfilled what I was made to do in spite of myself. 

Wouldn't that be marvelous. Make it so, Lord.

How Much Does God Really Have of Me...or You?

"God has all of me there is to have." William Carey

"The research has consistently shown over the past two decades that the lives of born-again Christians are indistinguishable from those of people who do not claim Jesus Christ as their savior." George Barna 

" In other words, most Christians have a relationship with God that could be described as "active but stalled" - a connection that has plateaued in its passion and influence, despite the continued commitment of time and energy to religious activity." George Barna

A few weeks ago, Jim LaMontagne gave a talk at our Sunday gathering in his Beyond Us: How God Moves Us Beyond Ourselves series. Talking about Abraham, he included a response William Carey gave to a question about his success as a missionary. As noted above, Carey said God had all of him; he was completely dedicated to the ways of God and redemptive mission of God - 100% commitment.

It got me thinking about what percentage God has of me, of my heart and will? While a number doesn't necessarily reveal much, and will inevitably be a subjective ranking at best (I'll skew it to a higher number most likely), it can be a helpful glimpse, especially as an aid to honest self-assessing, where I really am.

In my heart of hearts, I want it to be 100%, especially since I've been in Northampton. It makes little sense to me to be less committed. I don't like the spiritual dissipation of chasing after the wind blowing from the world's useless greeds and lusts. After all, what higher aspiration in this world could a person have than being a "fully-devoted follower of Jesus Christ?" The privilege of serving the King of kings ranks as chief in my estimation. At the same time, I've experienced lukewarmness and distracted indifference over the years. In my spiritual growing, I've been detained by other activities which sparkled but turned out to be fool's gold. As Barna notes, I've been "active, but stalled," "plateaued" on vast mesas of wandering or going after a brass ring that ends up to be tin foil.

As I think about it, God having all of me means his ways and his Kingdom mission are my pearl of great price. Therefore, being a husband, father, grandfather, spiritual formation catalyst, drummer, and friend all draw a bead on an overriding Purpose. My time, talent, money, stuff, hopes, dreams, and rights becomes means to achieve the End to which I've been summoned. There is no compartmentalizing "sacred and secular." I don't go to church; I am the church (you know what I mean). Being a Jesus-follower is a full-time gig with no time off or retirement as long as I'm on this side of Paradise.

I've been "working out my salvation" for almost four decades. It's not been pretty, but God has much more of me now than he did when I crossed over into the Kingdom  in 1972. I have a passion to see Christ glorified in this world and to see people snatched from the jaws of desolation in this world and the next. I love Jesus and have come to believe he actually loves the quixotic likes of me. There is so much evidence. 

So while I'm not completely confident he has all of me just yet, I can say I want him to. I can also say I hope I can get there while I'm still on this "terrestrial ball." Yeah, I know I may not be able to recognize it even if he's grants me 100% status, but he has my full permission to get me there.

The question is what about you dear reader? Can you say with confidence, "God has all of me there is to have?" If no, what do you still withhold from him? Why? With the Holy Spirit guiding you, take an inventory of your heart's true allegiances. Where are you compromised because of besetting or past, unconfessed sin or still holding onto the word's pleasures, attainments, privileges and distractions? Where does fear keep you doggedly pursuing safety and security? Where has disappointment and setback lead to detachment and indifference.? Where are you just tired and have given up? Worse yet, where are you kidding yourself thinking that your current "religious" commitment is just fine?

What if God actually had all there is of you to have? What would it look like? What would you need to change, and today for that to happen? How would your life be different?

Does it matter to you? It should.

Ask Jesus to do whatever it takes to get you there, and I really mean whatever it takes. As you read that sentence, notice if there was resistance or detachment, subtle or otherwise. Ask God to identify it right now. It's indicates where you really are in following Jesus and what really stands in the way of full surrender and inviting him to make you 100%.

The Hole in Our Gospel: Inching Toward a Life of Sacrificial Love.

"There is much at stake. The world we live in is under siege - three billion are desperately poor, one billion hungry, millions are trafficked in human slavery, ten million children die needlessly each year, wars and conflicts are wreaking havoc, pandemic diseases are spreading, ethnic hatred is flaming, and terrorism is growing. Most of our brothers and sisters in Christ in the developing world live in grinding poverty. And in the midst of this stands the Church of Jesus Christ in America, with resources, knowledge, and tools unequaled in the history of Christendom. I believe we stand on the brink of a defining moment. We have a choice to make.

When historians look back in one hundred years, what will they write about this nation of 340,000 churches? What will they say of the Church's response to the great challenges of our time - AIDS, poverty, hunger, terrorism, war? Will they say that these authentic Christians rose up courageously and responded to the tide of human suffering, that they rushed to the front lines to comfort the afflicted and douse the flames of hatred?

Or will they look back and see a Church too comfortable, insulated from the pain of the rest of the world , empty of compassion, and devoid of deeds? Will they write about a people who stood by and watched while a hundred million died of AIDS and 50 million children were orphaned, of Christians who live in luxury and self-indulgence while millions died of food and water? Will schoolchildren read in disgust about a Church that had the wealth to build great sanctuaries but lacked the will to build schools, hospitals, and clinics? In short, will we be remembered as a the Church with a gaping hole in the Gospel." (p. 238)

 "The total income of American churchgoers is $5.2 trillion . . . it would take just a little over 1 percent of the income of American Christians to the lift the poorest one billion people in the world out of extreme poverty . . . American Christians, who make up about 5 percent of the Church worldwide, control about half the global wealth." (p.216)

 
I'm just about finished with Richard Stearns' (CEO of World Vision) book The Hole in Our Gospel. I  highlighted portions of the excerpts because they capture for me the seeming blindness of the American Church to the widespread pain and suffering of people's all over the world who for a wildly complex tangle of reasons don't have their basic needs met, and are chronic victims of war, disease, entrenched poverty and corruption. Adding insult to injury,  the American Church is the wealthiest in the history of the world, meaning we have the collective resources to alleviate much of the world's suffering. Another sad reality is we use most of it first for our own concerns. Ugh!

If Stearns is right, this sad state of affairs is a travesty and should "haunt" us all with the glaring need to pick up our crosses and change our lives to more "enflesh" the abundant generosity and love of God for the "least of these," his brethren. Take a moment to read the following passages in Isaiah and Matthew to refresh your memory of how serious God is about the issue: Is. 58:1-12; Matthew 25:31-46.

Reading the book falls at a time when God is challenging me consistently to a more earnest following of Jesus, one in which much of my time, talent, and resources are spent helping alleviate suffering and providing the ways and means for people to fight their way back into a life full of real living as God defines it. My heart is being pricked often these days to further leave my well-kept safety nets and comfort zones, the old paths of sheltered Christianity I spent decades diligently practicing.

All he's asking me to do is live authentically as his follower not merely as a believer. I can believe in him and still withhold my heart enough leaving ample room to pursue the comforts, pleasures, privileges, and powers of the world. I can be dedicated to going to services, giving, reading a gazillion Christian books, doing hours of Bible study, listening to Christian music, attending Christian conferences, serving on committees, leading retreats, preaching and teaching, playing on the Worship Team, and even planting a church, but if don't love Jesus enough to surrender all of my life to follow him sacrificially as my prime directive, I'm missing much of what he taught about truly being his disciple.

In short, I end up being a fan with benefits, a perpetual volunteer, a member of the booster club, but not a player in the game where blood, sweat, and tears requires my all.

The reality is, he's moving on me from more than one direction these days. First, he's deepening the urgency and vehemence of my prayer life. It's not that I'm praying for longer time, it's more that when I pray there is an earnest longing for the Kingdom to come to people through me and imagine. I want more of him, more faith, courage, and more resources to make a difference in Northampton and other parts of the world. I strain into God with passion, calling on him to open ways where there appear to be no ways. I want to see the power of the Kingdom manifested to the degree lives really are changed, especially for the marginalized, voiceless and oppressed.

I want him to punch a hole in the fabric of darkness enshrouding parts of this broken world so the light of love, peace, healing and truth can prevail.

He's also creating in me a persisting desire to give away what I don't need or use. I'm not real good at this yet because it tales a substantial mental shift, but I continue to be taken back my how many duplicates I have of things. Drawers and closets are crammed. The phrase I use is being materially bloated.We've moved 3 times in the last 2 3/4 years, tag-selling and giving away a substantial amount of stuff with each move. With each move we downsized our living quarters. We can give still more and have all we need to live. When I think of people all over the world who have just the clothes on their backs, have to walk miles more than once a day to get their daily water, or live in huts with dirt floors, eking out a bare existence, keeping stuff I don't need or use is a start at radical re-orientation.

I think radical re-orientation is a must for following hard after Jesus.

Of late as well, God is bringing situations and people into our lives far different from what we've encountered frequently before. We've been in ministry a long time. We've experienced people in deep trouble with serious needs. In Northampton, however, the level of brokenness seems more complex: long-term addiction, generational poverty, mental illness, chronic problems with the law, and a pervasive counter-culture ethos all combine to make it tough to connect with the Gospel. God is bringing them to our door and we have opportunities to show his love asking nothing in return.

It feels to me as if God is offering imagine/Northampton the opportunity to head into the heart of what it means to deny myself, take up my cross daily and follow him. (Luke 9:24-6). the implication of that Scriptures and others in the New Testament have always scared me, because I want to control the degree of sacrifice I want to make. I like the freedom to do what I want to do, when and how. These it feels God is giving me grace to move toward him in this regard. It's if he's bringing me opportunities which blow me out of my comfort zones, and he says, "Will you do this for me?" Accompanying the question is "And do it now, not hesitate or balk?"

I'm learning to say "yes" and act then and there. As I do, he makes it happen. He blesses my obeying and stepping out by letting me give something which leaves a redemptive mark on someone. Jesus is laying groundwork and testing my resolve. He's teaching me a new level of trust and a willingness to sacrifice my introverted affection for spiritual monkdom. He wants me out there connecting and doing. He wants me where he is every day.

I can feel a shift both in me and our work in Northampton. It's subtle like a fleeting hint of things to come, but it's unmistakably there. While nothing looks much different outwardly something substantial has loosened or opened - a crack in the door, a tear in the fabric. I feel anticipation different from anything else since I moved here.

At the end of Stearns' book he includes a Franciscan benediction. He encourages is readers to pray and reflect on it, particularly regarding the hope it embodies. I encourage you to do the same:

May God bless you with a restless discomfort about easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships, so that you may seek truth boldly and love deep within your heart.

 May God bless you with holy anger at injustice, oppression, and exploitation of people, so that you may tirelessly work for justice, freedom, and peace among all people.

May God bless you with the gift of tears to shed with those who suffer from pain, rejection, starvation, or the loss of all they cherish. so that you may reach out your hand to comfort them and transform their pain into joy.

May God bless you with with enough foolishness to believe that you really can make a difference in this world, so that you are able, with God's grace, to do what others claim cannot be done.

And the blessing of God the Supreme Majesty and our Creator, Jesus Christ the incarnate Word Who is our Brother and Savior, and the Holy Spirit, our Advocate and Guide, be with you and remain with you, this day and forevermore. Amen.

"Leave Aside" Spiritual Formation Exercise #3

If you were to come to an imagine/Northampton worship gathering (and we'd love you to), you'd experience a spiritual formation exercise we call Leave Aside. It is different every week and comes from how we open Listening in Christ retreats to help people "leave aside" anything which would distract them from focusing on and receiving what God wanted to give them. We do the same thing to begin worship so people can attend to God and what he wants to show them. I invite them to write anything they need to "leave aside" before we go any further into worship. They write it on a card, put it in a basket, and we leave them all outside the door of our space.

The following was yesterday's exercise. The point of each paragraph is to emphasize what Jonathan Edwards calls "the greater internal heart duties," or Johannes Tauler refers to as the need to "have the soul to open herself wider, to be able to receive much, that He may bestow much upon her," or Hannah Whitall Smith says must "be the interior surrender of the convicted free men," or Ignatius of Antioch reveals what God could accomplish with someone who could "abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and . . .  allow His grace to mould them accordingly." Themes of wholehearted surrender and abandonment to God focused the reflection.

So I asked everyone to ponder each statement, then look at the questions following to ascertain if God wanted them to see where further spiritual formation was necessary in them. I challenged them to spend this week revisiting the exercise with God daily as part of prayer time with him.

I invite you to do the same with the exercise this week. See what returning daily to these questions might open to your heart. Ask God to reveal truth to you. Invite him to draw you nearer to his heart through them.

1. “The first and the great work of a Christian is about his heart. Do not be content with seeming to do good in 'outward acts' while your heart is bad, and you are a stranger to the greater internal heart duties. See that your chief study be about your heart; that there God's image may be planted; that there His interests be advanced; that there the world and flesh are subdued; that there the love of every sin is cast out; that there the love of holiness grows.”


Jonathan Edwards

Ask Jesus to show where he wants you to attend to “the greater internal heart duties” where the “Love of holiness grows,” and God’s “interests be advanced.” Where are you still a “stranger to the greater internal heart duties?”

2. “It is not of God's severity that He requires much from man; it is of His great kindness that He will have the soul to open herself wider, to be able to receive much, that He may bestow much upon her. Let no one think that it is hard to attain thereunto. Although it sound hard, and is hard at first, as touching the forsaking and dying to all things, yet, when one has reached this state, no life can be easier, or sweeter, or fuller of pleasures; for God is right diligent to be with us at all seasons, and to teach us, that He may bring us to Himself, when we are like to go astray. None of us ever desired anything more ardently than God desires to bring men to the knowledge of Himself. “

Johannes Tauler (14th Century German Dominican preacher and mystic)

Ask God to show you where he still “desires to bring (you) to the knowledge of himself.”

3. “I saw that the kingdom must be interior before it can be exterior, that it is a kingdom of ideas, and not one of brute force; that His rule is over hearts, not over places; that His victories must be inward before they can be outward; that He seeks to control spirits rather than bodies; that no triumph could satisfy Him but a triumph that gains the heart; that in short, where God really reigns, the surrender must be the interior surrender of the convicted free men, and not merely the outward surrender of the conquered slave.”

Hannah Whitall Smith (19th Century author, The Christian’s Secret of a Happy Life (1875))

Ask God to help you surrender your heart and not be enslaved by that which promises what it can never deliver. Where are you still enslaved?

4. “Few souls understand what God would accomplish in them if they were to abandon themselves unreservedly to Him and if they were to allow His grace to mould them accordingly.”

Ignatius of Antioch (second bishop of Antioch in Syria; martyred in the 2nd century)

Invite God to “mould” you to the degree of abandonment necessary for him to accomplish all he desires in and through you. What do you hold back from him?

I would love to hear how God spoke to you through this.

Being Missional Just makes More and More Sense to Me

I got to be a part one of my favorite interactions a few days ago. I sat down at Sylvester's Restaurant for a couple of hours with long-time friends and fellow Jesus-followers from CT. I've known each for over 20 years. They are serious about Kingdom stuff. One is a highly experienced worship leader, the other a pastor with a deep heart for intimacy with God. Up until two years ago they didn't share ministry under the same roof, now they do.

They wanted to get together to have a conversation because God has been putting a dangerous fire in their hearts (first in the worship guy), for a number of months. He is summoning them to transform a conservative, traditional, denominational, "this is the way we've always done it, and we're just fine - thank you very much" New England, small town church into a missional movement with a vision to love and serve their community that they might open young and old to the Gospel. Now that's a sentence, boys and girls!

Because I left a ministry of 20 years in CT at age 59 to plant imagine/Northampton, I've some street cred with them. I took a big risk to do this and have learned a few things even though there is much still to learn. I've also studied what it means to be missional in the DNA of a church, and am in the midst of trying to make it happen here.

As I talked with them, answering their questions, offering my experience and challenging them to trust God, it became exquisitely clear I'm utterly convinced being missional is at the center of being the church. We are here for "them" as much as we are here for us already gathered. The phrase "missional church" should be recognized as a redundancy: the church is a missionary, a missional Kingdom enterprise by definition.

Here is why:

1. Since the rebellion in heaven God has been on a mission to redeem all Creation. The Spirit works through the local church to make it so, one person at a time all over the world.

2. Jesus sent the disciples out with the command to "go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you." At the heart of the church was the mandate to go to the world.

3. The missionary impetus and movement has continued in one form or another throughout the world up to this day. The Church never just dried up and blew away, even in the bleakest of times. It will continue on its redemptive trajectory until the return of Christ at the end of the Age.

4.  The will of God has never been for us to settle into a passive relationship with our communities i.e.,  our doors are open on Sunday. We have a sign and a website telling people we're here.  If people around us want to come to church we're not stopping them. Right . . .

5. The missional mandate is: we are here as much for people outside our walls as within them. The church is not ours to keep for ourselves. Our loyalty should not be merely to our local church or pastor, but to God who puts every church in communities where "strangers and aliens" may come to know him. Yes, we are to love each other madly within the church, but because love must be given away to truly be love, we are gathered to give God's love to our communities as a result of the love God has for us and we have for one another. If we keep it to ourselves it will putrefy over time, full of self-protection and self-serving rigidity.

6. Being missional keeps the church alive and relevant to the lives of people far from it. Because the missional church learns the history, culture, values and demographics of the community in which it lives, it can speak its language and serve its people in a way that wins trust. Walls and barriers get broken down because relationships are built. The church is valued because it makes a difference adds repeatedly to the common good.

7. Being missional is prime for unleashing creativity because it is challenging to make the Gospel come alive in the larger community. There is no common language between the two so the church must find fresh ways of speaking clearly to people who have no frame of reference. Therefore, the missional church must create  welcoming environments for its artists and musicians to foster exploration and innovation. Through the arts bridges are built.

8. Being missional helps us get into the mess of people's lives rather than keeping ourselves spiritually distant and "clean." Jesus went into the muck and mire of broken people's lives. He was not turned away by the vulgarity of sin. He didn't adopt an "I don't wanna know," attitude. We need to be deep in the lives of people whose language is raw, their addictions have mastered them, their values are foreign, their relationships are entangled in a cycle of using and being used, their sexual morality is unbiblical and they don't like us much. We need to humble ourselves and have our hearts broken for people who have settled for so little.

9. Being a missional church will mean we have the opportunity to break free of our cherished culture of individuality. I am free to pursue who I want to be and "ain't nobody's business if I do". The American Dream is mine for the taking. I want the good life while on earth with plenty of money, creature comforts and the freedom to come and go as I please. Oh yeah, then I want to go to heaven where the real party is. Being missional means we live in true community with one another in the church and with our neighbors.  Our strongest ethic becomes giving and sharing what we have for the blessing of all, not "I got mine" and "you can have what I don't want anymore."

10, Finally being missional will send us close to Jesus who is alive and well in the world around us, and in our midst. His values and interests will gradually transform ours. We will learn to shoulder a cross for him and learn to be where he is in our communities. We will go there as a way of life. We will learn intimacy through prayer and intimacy through sacrificial service. Jesus will be our deepest longing, our enduring love and our greatest pleasure.

If all goes well it will be said of us that we "loved God with all our hearts and with all our souls, and with all our minds, and with all our strength. In turn, it will be said of us we also "loved our neighbors as ourselves."

Why would we not want that?

Following Jesus the Liberator Is Our Primary Identity.

Last Sunday I was set to give the message for imagine/Northampton's Very First Christmas Celebration. But due to the threat of the heavy snow we were supposed to get (which turned out to be only a dusting even though the radar showed it snowing over Northampton for 24 hours), we canceled Sunday's celebration on Saturday. Oh well.

Anyway, I thought I would share briefly what I was going to say.

Some background, first (I know this is not a complete sentence, by the way). Over the last
several months due to my reading of Ken Bailey, N.T. Wright, and John Howard Yoder, as well as Shane Claiborne and Jim Wallis earlier, I am being changed in how I view what Jesus came to do and how the Kingdom of God is to operate in my life and the lives of others. Almost 100% of my ministry before coming to Northampton was to Christians, teaching them to hear God and helping them heal. It was about liberation, but the focus was on people who already acknowledge Christ. All of it good stuff.

My change has come in two forms.

First, I realize increasingly Christ's liberating revolution was as much about overthrowing and neutralizing the universal Powers (Satanic rebellion, sin-infected cultural institutions, social conventions and traditions) that crush people, lull them into trifles, or destroy their lives as much as it is about my personal salvation as a sinner in need of the liberation of the cross. I have zero doubts I need Jesus's substitutionary atoning for me. But it isn't merely about my personal need as desperate as that is. I am just one tiny part of an astounding Creation-freeing Story, the likes of which is beyond our imagining in its scope and import.

So the collective witness and work of Christians demonstrates that the stranglehold of the Powers can be defused without violence or anarchic rebellion. We can live differently and demonstrate a freedom from oppression no matter how enticing. Our Holy Spirit infused values can transform what the Powers commandeered:

Love undermines fear.

Sacrificial service subverts pride.

Grace deflates hatred.

Generosity shames selfishness.

Jesus's revolution seeded at his birth, created at the cross, launched at the Resurrection and spread at Pentecost irrevocably severed the root of "the sickness unto death" in the universe. It is finished at the heart. It is the Story of all stories without which would make all of life "sound and fury; the tale told by a fool, signifying nothing." Jesus liberated the universe and his revolution is well underway.

Secondly, the Church, you and me, has been given the divine mandate to spread this subversive liberation. We are to head out all the time and work patiently to make disciples. We are to love and serve the world, witnessing to the transforming power of Jesus to free the captive and overturn the Powers. By our ordinary and simple lives we gain a foothold and establish life in midst of death.

Your primary (first order) identity as a Jesus-follower is that of a liberator and revolutionary. What? I know that might sound over-blown, but is it? What other primary identity could possibly trump it for the Christian: being an American or other nationality, your profession, the local church you go to, who you voted for in the national election, your ethnicity, financial or social status, what town or neighborhood you live in, or whether you are a Yankees or Red Sox fan? Jesus makes it clear in Matthew 25:31-40 that our primary identity centers on incarnating the his life-giving love to the least of our brethren. and anyone else he puts in our path. We are to spend the rest of our days so doing. We are servants (actually bond-servants, if you will). Nothing we do or can do is more important. Matters of eternity command our closest attention and our deepest daily loyalty, do they not?

Jesus liberated and sanctioned us to go about every last one of our days bringing the kingdom into the lives of people we meet, care for, work with and live around. Each day affords us the opportunity to unlock someone with a word, gesture or act of service that opens them just a little to the Gospel. How we do so does not have to be spectacular or clever. It will be merely the expression of a person who has been undone by the loving liberation of Jesus, and desires the same for everyone else who will listen and see.

Do you see yourself this way? Are you paying attention? Are you holding back? Is it your primary identity truth be told?

I have a long way to go in being really useful to his revolution, but I want to be.

I ask him to sovereignly make it so. I am more of a mess than I like to admit or show publicly, but history testifies he uses messes like me way beyond what they could have imagined.

May what he started in me years ago in Boston be completed such that his revolution is more and more my way of living and that of the McDermott household.

There Are Times When the Kingdom Just Needs to Kick Your Butt.

I have been reading Ken Bailey's Jesus Through Middle Eastern Eyes. I am slowly being changed by the book. Bailey does a bang-up job giving the reader a birds-eye view of the religious and political culture in which Jesus inaugurated his Father's redemptive Kingdom.

Most impacting is how his examination of the ministry of Jesus has opened me afresh to the confrontive nature of his brief 3 years of ministry, and the how the Kingdom is designed actually to operate in the world. Jesus and the Kingdom are far more gritty and demanding than I think many churches teach.

Redemption is not nice or polite. It is a flesh and blood confrontation of life against death in all its insidious manifestations. It is not pretty, or politically correct. It fiercely crosses boundaries, exposes sacred cows and vigorously upends dead traditions. It flies in the face of prejudices and undermines cherished conventions that insulate people from getting into the mess of making things right in people's lives.

And it confronts leaders who help people stay in soul-smothering safety and security.

So, I'm having my butt kicked by the Jesus I am seeing in the book. It has been revealing that the cross he fitted for me to carry often stays in the closet, out of sight and less threatening. Bonhoeffer's dictum that Jesus and the cross bid "a man (and woman), to come and die has never translated into radical steadfastness in my life. For me, it have been more like, " I'll really pick it up one of these days. And I'll know where to find it."

I hedge. I procrastinate.

I distract. I get fascinated with trifles.

I hesitate and hide: "Tomorrow, Lord . . . no, really, tomorrow. Yup."

Through Bailey's keen cultural examination of the life and words of Jesus I am continually exposed and confronted with how much fear and wanting to be likable infect me. I'm a proud son of a gun. But sadly, I am of little use to God if I will not be graciously (not politely) bold and assertive in confronting the death and blindness enslaving so many in Northampton and in the world. Merely going about and being nice just sucks. Ugh!

You see there is an "in your face" urgency to the ministry of Jesus, Peter and Paul. What crushed/stole life from the poor, defenseless, voiceless and powerless required truth-telling which offended the Roman occupying Empire, and religious establishment of the Pharisees and Sanhedrin. It wasn't about being obnoxious or rude. It was not full of fleshly pride or lust for dominance. It was about the Kingdom truth that looses chains and leads people toward forgiveness and freedom. It was about confronting the powers that be and throwing them down. The virile, loving truth they all lived subverted and overturned the dominion of death, and began the Reign of God through the Church . . . then and now.

Last night, I caught the last half hour of CNN's special Homegrown Terror. While deeply troubling on a number of levels, I was struck by the depth of dedication - maniacal and evil though it is - of the young men (some only teenagers), willing to give everything for their beliefs: single-minded dedication, even fanaticism. They follow their leaders as if these men are speaking the very words of God. They know the teachings under which they have been indoctrinated, and are completely about the business of violently changing the world according to them.

Their misguided example summoned me to think: "Shouldn't the Kingdom of God and the example and teaching of Jesus compel me(us) to the same degree of loyalty?" Isn't the urgency of the hour worth me speaking boldly with people about the truth no matter? Shouldn't my love be uncompromising and changing the world on my heart all the time? Shouldn't fearless serving be what I spend most my days doing, especially toward people far from the Kingdom, even antagonistic to it? Shouldn't I be willing to suffer whenever asked by my Lord for this most precious Treasure?

YES!

It is the normal, biblical Christian life. Anything less is counterfeit ersatz, and pointless no matter how good it feels or important it appears. Jesus-followers are to be about just this: constantly following Jesus, incarnating his values and example as he continues his redemptive work through you and me in our neighborhoods, workplaces, homes, towns, and cities.

I more and more want it to be so in me, and in the life of imagine/Northampton. Anything less is bilge-water compromise in my opinion.

So if you think about it when you finish this, pray for yourself and then pray that I would begin today to bold in Northampton. No compromise; only following.

Jesus give me the grace to should my cross with joy and affection. Let my life be characterized by love for you so strong that the cost does not matter. Grace me with single-hearted devotion to you, and for your Kingdom. Fill me with the joy set before me that I might endure whatever lies ahead in your service. Let people see you in me because I am emptied of me. Give a boldness that changes lives, gives sight to the blind, frees the captives and proclaims the Year of the Lord's favor in Northampton.

I have no idea how many days I have left, but make them be the most redemptively fruitful they have ever been.

Make it so as you desire.

Soli Deo Gloria!

And, oh, yeah . . . Maranatha!

Why I Am a Redemptive Subversive: An Unfolding Manifesto of Sorts.

1. The world suffers pain and travail, always in desperate need of this God it knows dimly or not at all. People live their lives never imagining this God lives desiring to be discovered and known through what he has already revealed in Jesus and what he has made.

THEREFORE, BY SEEKING HIS GRACIOUS ENABLING EACH DAY, I WILL TRY TO:

Be an instrument of his redemptive revealing in the remaining days I have been given.

Reflect him in thought, attitude, word and action.

Graciously subvert people's fears and skepticism about this God without wounding or oppressing them in any way.

Free the captive so they can discover him to be a liberator beyond their imagining.

Help the poor so they can discover his care and generosity beyond their imagining.

Open the eyes of the blind so they can discover his beauty, truth and power beyond their imagining.

Heal the broken-hearted so they can discover his compassion and affection beyond their imagining.

Refresh the weary so they can discover his rest and gentle empowering beyond their imagining.

Enliven the crushed in spirit so they can discover his promise for the future that gives them meaning beyond their imagining.

Love the unlovely so they can discover his delight in them beyond their imagining.

Free the embittered so they can discover his invitation to forgiveness and peace beyond their imagining.

Encourage the humiliated so they can discover his gentle ability to "lift their heads" beyond their imagining.

Befriend the critical so they can discover his truth and find felicity beyond their imagining.

Give a voice to the voiceless so they can discover this God who helps them find their unique place beyond their imagining.

Defend the oppressed so they can discover his justice on their behalf beyond their imagining.

Live the Good News so they can discover he is the seductive joy of hope beyond their imagining.


2. This Trinitarian God is the most spectacular Being without parallel in the entire universe, utterly transcendent and fully immanent. There are no other gods before him or after him. He is breath-taking in all his attributes and deserves to be shown as so.

THEREFORE, BY SEEKING HIS GRACIOUS ENABLING EACH DAY, I WILL TRY TO:

Never present in my thoughts, words, actions or attitudes a God who is puny, boring, tamable or worthy of ignoring.

Point to his unfathomable power and incomparable greatness as the Creator and LORD of the universe along side his profound humility and saving graciousness in Jesus.

Guide people to the unbounded magnificence of His Being in what he has made in Creation, and how he has ennobled men and women with the ability to create culture in all its multitude of forms.

Never knowingly contribute to the "binding" of God through man-made systems of thought, tradition or innovation whether from within the Church or without.

Ignite the stunningly creative love of God which subverts hatreds of all kinds, heals severed human relationships, turns horrific wounds of the heart into the means by which others are healed, and gives true life to people who have lived blindly under the thrall of death their entire lives.

3. This wildly unfettered God who is infinitely more than we can imagine does not rule over the world as a capricious tyrant, but as the wise Creator, Servant/Savior/Redeemer and Benevolent Lord (the Good King) who voluntarily withholds his rightful power to judge and punish in favor of redemptively subverting the obdurate human heart through grace-filled love which will ultimately set everything to rights. He is under no compunction to do so beyond his own freedom and joy.

THEREFORE, BY SEEKING HIS GRACIOUS ENABLING EACH DAY, I WILL TRY TO:

Recognize and move toward my constant need to be redemptively subverted by God's grace-filled love so I can be free to not use or dehumanize others for my security or gain, even those who wish to do me harm.

Reflect the intention and character of God, by how I treat others, always working to subvert what wounds and demeans them (even of their own making), and turns them toward true life and relationship.

Glorify this God by being transparent toward him and real toward others such that he is discovered.

Find ways of celebrating the beauty, mystery, and dignity of all people, including those who do everything they can to destroy those qualities in themselves.

Spend my days redemptively subverting anything that turns people away from this God toward impotent idols and counterfeit gods no matter how much they seem to glitter.

Spend my days trying to open others to the Triune One who is far more more than they can imagine and wants to reveal his heart to them, each one.

POSTSCRIPT: I know none of the above is even remotely possible for me without his help every minute of every day. I am utterly dependent on him to "unlock" me. But, I can see no other way of life that makes sense or offers the kind of real joy and freedom my unruly heart has always longed for and believed was possible. In fact, I no longer look for any other option. As it is, I hope I can spend the rest of my days living as I have described. If I can, I think it will have been a life well lived for me, my wife and family, and the people God has brought across my path to receive from, give to, and work with.

SOLI DEO GLORIA