Churches in our area that continue to focus primarily on reaching white people are headed for decline in the coming years. In my not so humble opinion, any church who has the white community in San Joaquin County as its primary evangelism target is making a huge mistake, one that I believe will backfire big time in the long run. There are a couple of reasons I make these statements with some degree of confidence.
According to Prof. Soong-Chan Rah of North Park Theological Seminary (@profrah, www.profrah.com) it’s an undisputed fact among secular sociologists and Christian missiologists that the white population in the US is shrinking relative to the explosion of non-white populations in the US, primarily Latino and Asian. This is no longer a regional issue, it is a nationwide trend as second and third generation Latinos and Asians begin to leave the primarily coastal towns and cities of their first generation American parents and move into the interior of the US. Those opposed to this trend can lament it and forward conspiracy theory email chains all they want but it’s a done deal and there’s nothing you can do to change it. It is what it is.
Prof Rah explained in a lecture I attended at Catalyst West a few weeks ago that this was caused almost exclusively by what many people now say is probably the most significant legislation passed in the US in the 20th century. The Immigration and Naturalization Act of 1965 significantly raised the number of immigrants allowed into the US annually. Over time this has changed the face of America as it opened the floodgates over the years to thousands upon thousands of primarily Asians and Latinos to start a new life in the US. Now, forty years later, their children and grandchildren are expanding the population of their respective ethnic groups here in the US as they continue to have children and immigrate.
By the year 2023 (just 13 years from now) the number of non-white children in America will equal or exceed the number of white children in America. The ethnic tipping point will have been met. By the year 2042 whites will be the minority ethnic group in the US. These are the facts, this is reality. As Prof Rah said over and over in the lecture, “It’s a done deal! There’s no reversing it. It’s a done deal.”
Numbers released yesterday from the Census Bureau indicate that this has already happened in our county, San Joaquin County, California. For us the future is now. See http://www.recordnet.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20100611/A_NEWS/6110326.
In my county Latinos already equal whites in percentage of population and soon will blow past whites and be the dominant ethnic group in the area. Not only that, but the white population is getting smaller, having shrunk by 5% in the last ten years. Latinos, on the other hand, have increased their population here by a staggering 45% in the last ten years. 6,000 people moved to our county in 2008; 5900 of them were Latino. The ethnic tipping point in our county is a mere dot in the rear view mirror. It’s a juggernaut that can’t, and shouldn’t be, stopped.
Like I said, if your church’s strategy is to reach primarily white people in San Joaquin County, good luck cuz you’re gonna need it.
Of course any church with any degree of evangelistic fervor will claim they’re trying to reach the whole population of their town. Awesome. But let’s be honest, for the most part, Sunday is still the most segregated day of the week both racially and socio-economically. Some of this is due to cultural and stylistic differences in worship praxis. But if we’re honest we have to admit that there is also an underlying racial and class tension from all sides that continues to drive this division. MLK and Cesar Chavez would still be protesting if they were alive today.
Even churches that purport to be reaching the whole city with the whole gospel and similar mantras really don’t do that in reality for the most part. Many follow the target audience approach popularized by Rick Warren in the 80’s which identifies people “like us” and most evangelistic efforts are directed to that population in the city. His target was the so-called “Saddleback Sam”; essentially upwardly mobile whites of OC. This isn’t a necessarily bad way to approach evangelism if the target you’re going after is actually representative of your city (as in Warren’s case when he planted Saddleback) and not a preferred slice of the pie. When niche evangelism happens we run afoul of the Apostle Paul’s admonition to not prefer rich people over poor. Worse yet it can deteriorate into nothing more than religious racial profiling. (Btw: Rick Warren is not a racist, I have tremendous respect for the guy).
Anyway, once a target is picked, consciously or unconsciously, then generally what happens is that symbolic evangelistic gestures that are socially oriented and not relationally oriented are then offered toward those that are less “like us” and relationally oriented evangelistic efforts are offered to those most “like us.” Thus we can then claim to be trying to reach the whole city, but in fact we’re symbolically evangelizing those less like us and putting our best efforts and resources into reaching those “like us.” This is a perversion of the Great Commission mandate.
If this ideology drives your actual evangelism strategy (as opposed to the one in your bulletin and website) and you’re in San Joaquin county and are going after the white people here then you’re in big trouble in the long run because your “market” is shrinking and your “market share” will only grow through transfers from other churches (this is the documented “growth engine” of primarily white mega-churches). Unfortunately, this is merely church growth, not biblical evangelism of reaching unbelievers. If your goal is to put butts in the seats in order to produce bucks for the bank then going after affluent whites may be a good short term strategy in tough economic times. But if your goal is biblical evangelism and reaching your Jerusalem and Judea then you need to reach all people in your demographic pie, not just a shrinking sliver of your pie.
A change in evangelism strategy will almost certainly necessitate a significant change in your current “business model.” If your “market” changes then your “products” and “customer service” must change. There, I said it, the Big C word; change. If you don’t change what you do as a church and how you do it and reallocate your resources to minister effectively to your whole community then your church will get grayer and grayer, and smaller and smaller as your people die or move away (we’re one of the most mobile cultures in history).
Eventually you’ll have to sell your property and buildings to a multi-cultural church that made the adjustments in time and figured out a way to actually obey the Great Commandment in the new cultural context. To add salt to the wound, they’ll probably tear down your buildings and start over because the praxis of spiritual community will have changed and your buildings will no longer be useful as they’re currently designed. But that’s another blog.
This isn’t new information and it’s not the first time the church has faced this challenge. I’m not really saying anything revolutionary or revelatory to anyone that has been paying attention the last few years. But in light of the latest information from the Census Bureau it’s gotten my goat today. It’s reality right now where I live. As a person who deeply cares about the church and its mission this is something important and critical to the now and the future.
How to do this, morph into a culturally relevant local church? The best answer I can give really is, it depends. And even so, there are more than one way to skin this cat, imo. I’d say start with the objective of a multi-cultural spiritual community and then through prayer and lots of discussion and experimentation figure out the best path for your group. Again, this is a good topic for another day.
Ethnic specific worship services and ministries are a good place to start, especially for first generation and older immigrants. But these probably have less impact on second and third generation people and their friends and children as these tend to value their heritage but view themselves more as mainstream Americans.
The bigger goal should be, imo, figuring out a way to change the definition of “us.” Churches reach who they are. The question is then who are you? If you’re reaching out to multiple cultures you’ll become a multi-cultural church in terms of the ethnicity of your congregants. If you’re primarily one ethnicity or another and/or a single socio-economic group you’ll only reach those people, with some exceptions.
The goal then should be to change the “us” to make sure it’s representative of your community’s cultural context so that when you try to reach people “like us” that the base is larger than a narrow band of ethnic and/or socio-economic groups. If the “us” includes a real cross -section of the population, average age, and socio-economic strata of our area then our church is not only obeying the Great Commission but also has the good chance of growing, thriving, and being a blessing to our community in the long-term future.
Other interesting issues Prof. Rah brought up: This change in population is reflected in a significant way in the numbers of people attending churches in the US. Evangelicalism in the US has maintained modest growth over the last few years while mainline denominations have suffered dramatically. When you pull back the covers of those stats Prof. Rah says you see that the denoms suffering the most are comprised of older white people. Of particular interest is the that the same decline in whites is reflected in evangelicalism. The only reason evangelical denoms are growing is because of non-white growth within them, especially in the Pentecostal sector.
As Prof. Rah conjectured at CatWest, the de-whityfication of America isn’t killing America as some racists bemoan in the media, but it is definitely killing the Americanized church. The sooner we wake up to this and accept it the better off we’ll be in the long run. Churches that will thrive in terms of effectiveness in the near and far future are those that figure out a way to incorporate ethnic heritage and style into their worship praxis and who reject and insistence on a largely white dominated style and praxis and begin to include non-white voices and heritage into the mix. This is a truly multi-cultural approach to the Great Commission and one I believe the Great Commission demands of us.
Prof. Rah feels that there won’t be serious attention to this issue in white evangelicalism until the Christian publishing houses and large preaching and leadership conferences begin to take seriously the incorporation of non-white, non-“American” voices into the Western evangelical conversation. He feels the publishing houses in particular pander to middle-aged white people by publishing material produced by people “like them.” Perhaps this is beginning to happen as Prof. Rah lectured at CatWest a couple of months ago and just yesterday was part of a blue ribbon panel at Rick Warren’s church dealing with socially relevant issues and the churches response to them. As a middle aged white guy I’m thankful for that.
Sidebar: Another stat that caught my eye in the article today was the average age in San Joaquin County is 32 years old and the largest group of people in the county is the 25-44 year old demographic. It seems to me that if the average age of your church is not between 25-32 years old and you’re church isn’t connecting with people under 35 years old then the bell tolls for your church. And what an opportunity for a church that focuses reaching the whole community, including young people with shallow pockets. But, that’s another blog that maybe I’ll get to later.
I was thinking about the early church worship practices yesterday and got a seed of an idea that I think is kinda cool.
The early church would meet every day early in the morning in secret locations. They’d pray for each other, take communion, and commit to each other to live out the Christian ideals in their work that day. Their meetings were short, private affairs that they did not advertise or invite unbelievers to attend (they weren’t exactly seeker sensitive).
I think it’d be kind of cool to have small groups that are geographically organized around neighborhoods, areas of town, parking lots located near major intersections, commute hubs like train stations, etc… These group would meet during the work week early in the morning as people are heading to work. These meetings would last for approximately 10-15 minutes. In these meetings there could be a short Scripture reading, prayer for immediate needs of the attenders for that day, communion, and a prayer of commitment to Christ at the end.
These groups could connect via Twitter, texting, and Facebook during the day as ways to continually encourage each other, follow up on the prayer requests (“Hey, how’d the presentation go?”), etc…
A church could organize this and communicate to the groups electronically, suggesting the daily liturgy. A smart pastor would align the readings and prayers with the current direction of the Sunday preaching.
Obviously not everyone could participate in this sort of group. But many could and I think it’d be a real benefit to them, a good spiritual discipline to connect with on a daily basis.
I heard a Bible teacher once state that he didn’t believe there is a ‘will of God’ for every person. He said he believed the Bible teaches that as long as you stay within the bounds of Biblical teaching that God’s providence for us is that we do whatever we want and we have his blessing. He stated that in thirty years of ministry that he’d never prayed about a single ministry decision. He seemed to be doing well as he’s a well respected teacher in a prominent position of influence.
Donald Miller, one of my favorite authors and speakers, says pretty much the same thing. In his talk at Catalyst West this year and in his blog last month he stated that he believes that very few people in the Bible had a divinely specific plan for their lives and he believes the rest of us are left to our devices, within the bounds of righteousness of course.
I grew up in a religious environment where the ‘will of God’ was oftentimes viewed much the same as walking a tight rope across Niagara Falls, one wrong move and you’re in big trouble. Much effort, prayer, and fasting went into accurately discerning your next move in life that was in accordance to God’s good pleasure. If you were to even accidentally stray from this detailed blueprint for your life you would somehow remove yourself from the umbrella of God’s protection and blessing and all sorts of bad things could happen to you and your family, particularly your children. The cultic, spiritually abusive characteristics of this view are obvious to the casual observer and it’s not one I accept any longer.
However, I also have difficulty swallowing the point of view of my teacher who said it was all up to me, to chart my own course. I think there’s probably a middle ground in between these two extremes that I think is perhaps more Biblical. Some call this “God’s preferable future” for you and I.
The sense is that, like my teacher said, there are many good and acceptable options for us to choose from in life, all of which would be pleasing to God and all of which he’d give his blessing. However, there are a limited number of options that He prefers for us and probably just one ‘best’ option for our current life situation and life stage. If we are wise we would properly discern this ‘best’ option and choose it. This would incorporate then the good meat of both extremes.
I agree with Miller, there do seem to be people in Scripture that have a special, unique calling for a specific role in their context. I think of Samuel, John the Baptist, Solomon, Jesus, Moses, et al. It seems their lives were pre-destined in an almost Calvinist way and their path was clear and certain. But that doesn’t necessarily preclude the rest of us from a similar situation. Just because our roles are less prominent and less stark doesn’t mean they’re any less specific or preferred by God.
It would seem that the whole idea of spiritual gifts lends itself to the idea that God has wired us to fulfill certain roles in spiritual community. If we don’t have a specific job from God, it seems we certainly have a specific role to play in community. Eph 4 talks about the five fold ministry that are given as gifts to the church to equip the saints for ministry. It seems then that God does have a plan of some sort for each of us, otherwise spiritual gifts would be like tools in a shed that we pick according to the job we want to do at the moment. But we can’t do that, gifts are given to us to be used according to His good pleasure. We are the tools, and tools are made with a purpose in mind.
Then there is the Apostle Paul, who characterized himself as a slave to Christ. This seems a peculiar metaphor to us today in our culture that revolves around the preeminence of the individual. Perhaps even the preoccupation with a personal life plan of God reflects our focus on the individual as so many times my concern with it isn’t so much as how I can help the kingdom as much as a search for significance. It’s difficult for us to imagine the individual being subject to the will of something outside of itself; to the group or even to God really. That’s for another blog post.
But Paul said he was a slave. A slave! To his audience this was the reality of life, many of his listeners and readers were slaves. 97% of the population of the Roman Empire at the time were slaves of some sort. To them slavery was as ubiquitous as the internet or fast food to us today. It was everywhere, inescapable. In fact, the Epistle to Philemon is a letter from the Apostle to a slave owner asking him to accept back a runaway slave who was a brother in Christ now to his former master. We struggle to accept that concept today, we the protectors of human rights in history.
There were all sorts of slaves in those day ranging from temporary bond servants to outright permanent ownership, it was all considered slavery. But it was slavery nonetheless where a person’s individuality and personal rights were subject to another person. The Roman Empire was not the land of the free and home of the brave where anything was possible for the intrepid entrepreneur. It was a place where power domination over individuals and the subjection of your will to another man and to a government was the norm. And it was this subjection of personal will to another that Paul identified with when he called himself a slave of God.
But Paul isn’t the only one to refer to himself as a slave of God, so did Peter, and the writer of Jude and even Christ’s own brother James claimed to be a slave of Christ! The great men of the New Testament didn’t consider themselves themselves free agents or independent contractors in the kingdom of God plotting our own course in the world under the benevolent eye of our rich Uncle Jesus. As slaves to God they submitted themselves completely and in every way to the will of God, viewing themselves as property of the Master to be used, or not used, as the Master wished.
This doesn’t mean that in the fulfilling of our duties in the kingdom that God desires to be a micro-manager requiring consultation and approval for every move and decision. He gives us the Bible, our gifts, godly counsel, and wisdom to make righteous judgments. But I suspect that it does mean that our specific role in the kingdom is determined by the Master and it’s our duty to submit to our role as belonging to Him.
Part of our problem with slavery is our association of slavery with cruelty, death, beatings, blood, rape and other violent kinds of personal assault. I usually think of Hebrew slaves being whipped by Egyptian foremen, or “Roots”. These images are real and not to be dismissed or marginalized to any degree.
But that’s not the only picture of slavery presented in Scripture. Joseph was a slave to Potiphar and to the Pharaoh and he lived a prosperous, comfortable life. He was much more than a house slave; he was a ruler, a leader, a shrewd business man who wielded much power and garnered respect and even fear from those under him. The determinate factor in the humanity or inhumanity of slavery is the master. In Joseph’s case with the Pharaoh he had enjoyed a relationship of trust and favor with his master, and also for awhile with Potiphar.
The key to slavery as a good or bad thing really is the Master, not the absence of personal rights. New Testament readers understood this instinctively. They understood that in the dark and dangerous Roman world the relative slavery to a good master was a step up compared to the harshness of ‘freedom’, especially for women. This I think is part of the appeal of slavery to God in the minds of NT writers who described themselves as slave to God.
They understood that slavery to God, a slavish devotion to the Almighty, was the safest and best place to be in life, it was a place of privilege, honor, and favor. They understood the goodness, the mercy, the kindness, the gentleness and the love of God and knew that all things work together for good for those that love the Lord and are called according to his purpose. His purpose, not ours.
As Christians I believe we are called not just to freedom from the guilt of sin, but to slavery to a righteous and merciful Master who is working His plan in the world. As Westerners we frame the punctiliar moment of salvation in terms of “accepting the Lord Jesus Christ into our lives” when in fact we are accepting his invitation to immerse our lives into Him. It is in Him that we live and breathe and have our being. The direction of our salvation is backwards, He is not coming into us as much as we move into him.
When viewed from this perspective the Christian life is less about what can God do for me and more about what is God doing and where can I join in? It’s cliché but true, it’s not about asking God to bless us, but to find what he’s blessing and join in. That’s the mindset of a slave of God, one who views God more as El-ohim and less Jehovah Jireh.
I am in transition in my life right now, which explains why this is so important to me at this juncture in my life. For a person of imagination and initiative there are always opportunities of one sort or another. But which way to go? What should be the driving force behind the decision; what seems best or something else that perhaps isn’t as attractive or doesn’t seem to make good career sense? Macedonia seemed good to Paul but he was prevented from going. Nineveh seemed like the wrong place for Jonah. Jesus didn’t want to be tortured and murdered and Paul didn’t want to be beaten and left for dead outside Derbe; but for whatever reason it was God’s preferable future for them all. In the kingdom things aren’t always what they seem.
Because of that I have learned that I’m not as smart as I think I am. God is much smarter than me. He knows about things that are and things that are coming that I don’t know about. He knows the lusts of my heart that conspire to lure me to options of life and ministry that in the long run would be ruinous for me or worse yet, assign me to a life ‘successful’ ineffectiveness.
If I am to emulate my biblical elders I am to submit myself to God as a slave. I am to pray as Jesus prayed in Gethsemane, “Not my will by your will be done.” I am to pray as Jesus taught us to pray, “Let your heavenly will be done here on earth.”. I am to trust him and do what he says believing by faith that I can do all things through him as he strengthens me. We should use our knowledge and experience not to decide the right path but to discern it.
People say this quite a bit and they mean well. I know this because I’ve said it myself a million times over the years and meant it to be comforting and encouraging to someone in a tough spot. The sentiment is true, but really I don’t know that it’s absolutely true in reality. I believe God is sovereign, but he’s not always in control.
Obviously this a theological question and I’m obviously not a Calvinist. I’m not even a theologian. I love Calvinists. Some of my best friends are Calvinist. But I’m not one, not even a soft one. To say that God is in control of every situation strikes me as a staunch Calvinist pov. If God really is in control of every situation then he is responsible for all the sin in the world and I have a difficult time squaring that idea with the Bible. I could be wrong, but that’s my pov.
The Bible is replete with examples of people who disobey God and those who attempt to thwart God’s will. History is full of people and churches and nations that have made choices against the wisdom and purposes of God. He wanted them to make choice A but they made choice M, or Q, or Z. Like the father of the prodigal son the Father waits patiently for people and churches to return to plan A and do what he wants. Sometimes they do, many times they do not. It’s their choice (all my Calvinist friends just cringed. :) ).
Sometimes this antipathy toward God’s will is conscience and the Bible calls this wickedness and the spirit of anti-Christ. Most of the time though we work against God unconsciensely; we compromise our integrity toward righteousness through weakness or ignorance and this is called sin. We’re all sinners. Every day I thwart God’s will and do the opposite of what he wants me to do to some degree. And this is why “Amazing Grace” is still my favorite song of all-time.
God is not in control, but God is sovereign. And that’s part of what makes him God, so utterly different than humanity. In spite of our repeated attempts in large and small ways to circumvent the purpose of God he is able to move inexorably toward the realization of his goals. Nothing can stop him. When we do what God doesn’t want us to do it doesn’t ruin his plans. Through his infinite wisdom and foreknowledge he is able to work around any obstacle we throw at him and keeps time, history, the church, and eternity marching forward to his ultimate end. He’s God, and nobody can stop him. That’s the sovereignty of God.
This is comforting. This makes him dependable, trustworthy, and idiot-proof. As an idiot I am encouraged.
Job 8 - Perfect example of the sexiness of false doctrine. This idea that if you’re good your life will be rosy and you’ll always come out on top appeals to human narcissism and is not based in reality. I suppose if you extend things out beyond death and into eternity then it’s true doctrine. But normally, as here, the idea is that your temporal existence will be comfortable and you’ll prosper according to our measures of success and blessing if you’re good. It’s works based religion.
Prosperity gospel is based on it and appeals to our greed. It feels good to believe that our comfort or success is God’s preeminent concern, so we like to believe it. But it’s false. Jesus died a horrible death and lived in all sorts of rejection and opposition in his life and ministry And he said that we could expect more of the same as his followers. That proved to be true with all the Apostles, they followed him in persecution and matyrdom.
Ask Dietrich Bonhoeffer if life ends up good in the end. He went into Nazi Germany as a missionary to preach against the Nazi party and its evil. As he hung from a rope on a Nazi gallow, body convulsing, his tongue bulging from his mouth, his eyes wide the point of bursting and his bowels emptying themselves I’m sure he wasn’t the picture of blessing, success, and comfort.
We put too much stock in this world. We put too much stock in physicality. Is it coincidence that the words “temporal” and “temporary” are so similar? Even though sometimes God does make life easier and he does give some people alot of stuff, it doesn’t necessarily mean they have any more favor than the guy who is struggling to make rent or loses his home or the kid in Africa who dies of starvation or the old lady in Mexico City who lives in a cardboard hut or the innocent girl sold by her parents and exists day to day in a drugged stupor in a Bangkok brothel?
And sometimes that blessing comes at a price. Even though Job got back more stuff than he had before, he didn’t get his old children back. They were still dead. Sure he got new ones. But his original family was still dead, God did not resurrect them. God used Job to prove a point, and Job paid the price of that object lesson for the rest of his life as he carried in his heart the memory of his dead children who died with the permission of a righteous God. That’s a heavy price. Perhaps worse than martyrdom.
True freedom and shalom is when we are free from the allure of stuff and the intoxication of reputation. True freedom is when we trust God.
Journal Entry - Emotion and Faith
Reading: Esther 3-8, Luke 18
Things that made me go hmmmm….
Esther 7….Esther didn’t ask her big request until she had the king all liquored up. What would we say today about a woman who liquored up her husband and asked him to wack her enemy who just happened to be his XO? Devious? I think of one of those James Bond black leather clad femme fatales. But Esther is a heroine, and Jews have a feast in honor of her heroism. It’s easy to justify it because it’s in the Bible and it’s the Jews that she saved. But isn’t that kinda situational ethics, the ends justify the means? Idk.
Esther 7:4 – I’m not an Imperial Wizard of the KKK or anything, but their view of slavery wasn’t like ours. I’m not in favor of slavery of any kind. But it fascinates me when I read the Bible and see the obvious and major differences in ethics and morals between their culture and ours.
Emotions and faith – Mordecai and Esther were scared to death, but they did the right thing anyway. That’s faith. Faith is not necessarily tied to our emotion. Faith is obedience to rightness. It’s doing the right thing no matter how you feel about it, no matter what it might cost you personally, no matter how it makes you look in front of others (even those in your faith community). Faith is prophetic. Mordecai stood up at the king’s gate when Haman passed and refused to bow like all the other people (fellow Jews included). In the face of his fear he stood for what was right. For days kind, well-intentioned people tried to talk him out of it but he kept standing. I’m sure he wondered why no other Jews followed his lead.
I’m sure he felt very alone and wondered if he was doing the right thing or just being too anal. I’m sure he felt that when the genocide decree was issued and he went into the streets of Susan in sackcloth and ashes, mourning I’m sure at least partly regretting his decision. I wonder if he heard John Maxwell’s maxim in his head, “If you think you’re leading and nobody is following then you’re just taking a walk.”. Hmmm…, sounds good, but not true. Love ya John, but you got that one wrong. Sometimes you lead and nobody follows, but you’re still a leader. Sometimes it costs you and it seems that there is no justice, but you do e what’s right anyway. And sometimes you pay dearly for it. But you’re still a leader.
And Esther. She was skerred too. Mordecai had to apply some pretty heavy pressure to her, manipulated her even, to get her to do the right thing. She knew she could die if she did what he asked. But she overcame her fear and did the right thing.
Emotion is a fickle friend. Emotion played a huge part in the story. The fear of Mordecai and Esther and the Jewish people. The anger born of arrogance of Haman. The drunken, irrational, impetuous rage and lust of Ahasuerus. Haman’s frantic begging for his life. The emotion was leveraged to accomplish what was right. But the emotion left to itself is destructive. Faith brings stability to emotion.
Too often I couple faith and feeling. I know, I know…everybody says they’re not the same. Yeah, yeah, whatever. But as a Pentecostal that’s hard to separate. So much of Pentecostalism is tied to what we feel and experience. Thus when what I feel and experience is at odds with what is faithful it’s a struggle. Oftentimes we question the faith factor because we don’t feel faithful, and we haven’t been faithful recently. We hold our past against ourselves. God isn’t concerned as much about our past faithlessness as he is with our right now faithfulness. He’s the king of mulligans. Every day can be Groundhog Day with God. Heb 11 is full of people who didn’t feel faithful, yet it says their faith never wavered. Faith is the victory of our belief in Godness over our faith in humanness. It’s behaving according to what we don’t see (or feel) over what we see (and feel).
Luke 18 – I preached on this recently. The story of the Pharisee and the Publican and the little kids and the rich ruler. I see an underlying theme about humility in these chapters. Jesus keeps coming back to it over and over. He wanted people to know and live in proper perspective, knowing our place. If we know our place we can then begin to comprehend grace and start to scratch the surface of appreciation for his mercy and kindness to us. If we want to understand and live in the graceful world of Paul and David, et al then we must understand and live in humility. The door to humility is the understanding of who God is and who we are not.
The Pharisee was proud of his legalism, the publican knew he was a bottom feeder. Children know they’re helpless, they know they’re weak, and expect help and provision. The ruler dude was young, rich, and in a position of prestige and influence. He was all that and a bag of chips, and he knew it. To the Jews of that day a rich man was viewed as someone with special favor from God. In such a dominantly religious society it was this prestige that carried more weight than the riches really. Everybody thought he was blessed and favored by Yahweh! Who would want to give that up? Being a ‘nobody’ and being physically vulnerable in a violent Roman world was a high price to ask. You can hardly blame the guy for going away sorrowful. He did all the right religious things, but he wasn’t willing to give up his reputation and his physical security. These were his insulation from insignificance and hunger. But Yahweh wasn’t his Lord, he lacked humility rooted in faith.
Jesus wants us to give up everything and be willing to sacrifice it all for him. Idk why. He just does. Discipleship is grounded in humility and faith. Humility is understanding our place in relation to God. Faith is making ourselves vulnerable to him, putting ourselves at risk for what He says is right. That’s frightening. Frankly, it scares the crap out of me when I think about it. No wonder it’s a narrow path and few are they that find it. Perhaps ignorance is indeed bliss.
Prayer: Lord, help me to live in humble faithfulness.
Spiritual leaders discern and obey the will of God. Period. This is their role as spiritual leaders; to listen for God’s instruction and then lead in obedience. Sometimes this instruction is given by virtue of experience, sometimes it’s delineated in Scripture, sometimes it’s found in Godly counsel, and other times it’s given directly to the leader from God. No matter the means, the end is the same. Godly spiritual leaders hear from God and lead in obedience.
This is part of what I think Paul meant in Colossians 1:9-2:4. The Apostle prayed daily that his readers would be filled with the knowledge of the will of God in all spiritual wisdom and understanding. If they had this understanding they’d walk worthily and pleasing to the Lord, their lives would be fruitful, their ministry powerful, and they’d live in a state of faith and joy and gratitude to God. Isn’t this the ultimate aim of every godly spiritual leader? It is for me that’s for sure!
What does spiritual wisdom look like? It would seem to me that Paul gives us a clue in the following passages. Spiritual wisdom is an understanding of…
- Reality – 1:13 – To the poor in spirit is promised the Kingdom of God. We must have a vivid sense of our sinfulness and the ‘domain of darkness’ in which we exist in this world. To be ignorant of the ever present spiritual struggle of evil against good is to be spiritually ignorant. Too often we depend more on the solution to another man’s struggle than to discern God’s solution for our own. Systemic problems require systemic solutions, but spiritual problems require spiritual solutions and only the spiritually wise man or woman of God can lead with confidence in a spiritual crisis.
- Christ is the ultimate winner – 1:13-24 – Even in this struggle, through Christ we win! As Chip Ingram says, we’re not fighting for victory, we’re fighting from victory. We’re champs in Christ! Spiritual wisdom does not allow the Satanic bully to win in the battle of the mind. Spiritual wisdom understands that spiritual victory is won violently and that spiritual armor is designed to protect an aggressive spiritual warrior. Spiritual wisdom understands that a good offense is the best defense.
- Leadership is our purpose – 1:25-28 – We are called to preach Christ, teach Christ, and to lead others to do the same. Anything less or more than this calling is out of the will of God and, at best, is wisdom laced with ignornace. Leaders lead, they can’t help it. But where are we headed? If we’re completely honest with ourselves, what is our goal? Is our goal to preach Christ or to preach conferences? To preach the Book or to sell a book? To measure or to be measured? To admonish or to be admired? Spiritual wisdom leads with purpose, it’s visionary and daring and scares the pants off religious people.
- Christ is the source of spiritual wisdom – 2:1-3 – Spiritual wisdom can only be found in a personal relationship with Christ. In Him ‘are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.’ There are two kinds of knowledge, truth and untruth. Untruth is the fruit of religion. Truth is the fruit of relationship with Him. Know the truth and the truth will set you free; He is the truth, He is the way. He is the Word that is light on our path. We can dress it up all we want, but at the end of the day spiritual wisdom comes through relationship with Christ. Given a choice it’s better to be a master of spiritual disciplines than a Master of Divinity (but if you can do both, go for it!).
We can read all the cool books we want (and we should), we can go to all the cool conferences we can afford (and we should), we can adapt and adopt successful models and contextualize our methods (and we should). We can organize, systematize, and promote the snot out of what we’re doing, and we should. But if we don’t have a deep, abiding, constant relationship with Christ then it’s all barely more than resource based religion.
Spiritual leadership is found only in a man or woman who understands the times and knows what to do. This wisdom can only come to someone who understands spiritual reality of evil and good, who operates with the confidence of a champ, who looks to God to find out what to do and then has the courage to actually do it.
Anything less than spiritual leadership is merely leadership, and anybody can do that.
Spiritual leaders allow the Holy Spirit to reveal the spiritual issues at work in their sphere of influence. They have the faith to attack them and the vision to see a different future in Christ for their group. All of this is spiritual wisdom, and it comes from relationship, from prayer.
It’s amazing, at the end of it all prayer is the key and faith unlocks the door to the future.
I heard once that a definition of an enemy is someone that has set themselves in opposition against you.
Put that way an enemy is much less evil and rare and could be much more friendly and commonplace. Usually when I think of an enemy I think of someone like the lady who lives behind me who throws away my kids toys; hateful, angry, and mean. I think of Nazis, or Pol Pot, or Josef Stalin, or the Devil. The word ‘enemy’ normally conjures images of aggressive and blatant malfeasance and evokes a strong negative emotional response.
But by this definition enemies are in all sorts of places and sometimes we don’t discern a person is our enemy until it’s too late. These are wolves dressed as sheep, as the Bible says. Jesus warned his followers that they’d have enemies. Jesus had enemies. All of the apostles had enemies. I think it’d be fair to say that all the martyrs of Christian history had enemies.
Anyone who disagrees with your point of view and sets themselves in opposition to your view is your enemy. Dude, that sound harsh you may say. True. It does sound harsh. But reality sucks sometimes and it’s best to face the truth instead of insist on a lie just because it makes us feel good.
The truth of life is that people we hang out with, people we work with, people we work for, our neighbors, our favorite author, the televangelist on TV, the guy slicing fries at In-N-Out Burger, or even our own family members can be and often are our enemies. Heck, half the time my worst enemy is the guy with the loopy grin on my driver’s license. How many cop shows have you watched where someone said of the deceased, “He didn’t have an enemy in the world!”. Nice thought, but untrue. Everyone has enemies. It’s inescapable. In fact, generally speaking, the more you actually align yourself with Christ the more enemies you’ll have. It’s part of the price of true discipleship.
On the flip side, you are an enemy. And so am I. To someone else somewhere you and I are their enemy. Jesus said to seek first the kingdom of God and its righteousness. When you really set your mind to obey this command of Christ you instantly set yourself as an enemy to most of the people around you, including some fellow believers. Perhaps this is part of what he meant when Jesus said that he came to divide brother from brother. He came to divide religion from relationship. True commitment to Christ divides people and creates enemies. That’s blasphemous! No, it’s not. In a perfect world this wouldn’t be so and someday in the new world the lion will sit with the lamb. But in this world the lamb better be quick on his feet.
If I stand for righteousness then I am standing for the rightness, the holiness, the character of God. The prophets did this and were mostly stoned and rejected for it. Most of us don’t like the righteousness of God and while we pledge allegiance to it with our mouth our hands and feet oppose it. And when someone around us tries to align their feet and their hands with their mouth it makes us uncomfortable and squeamish. Our natural response is to begin to qualify their actions, to malign their beliefs in attempt to bring ‘balance’ to their viewpoint, and little by little we set ourselves in opposition to their point of view (God’s pov) and become their enemy, and his. We all do it.
So, we all have enemies and we all are enemies to someone else. What to do about it? Jesus is a pretty smart guy and he was ready for this one back in the day when he was here in the flesh. He told us to love our enemies. He told us to pray for them. He said to bless them. He said to go the extra mile for them. He said to turn the cheek to their insults and pain inflicting actions. He said to forgive them to infinity and beyond. {insert track of boys choir singing ‘Kumbaya”}
Two things can be said here. First, doing this really, really sucks. I want to return insult for insult, pain for pain, and tit for tat. The Bible says an eye for an eye right?! Well, sorta. The context of that verse is fairness and attempts to reduce punishment rather than advocate it. I want to get me a piece of the action when someone hurts me.
It’s at times like these that being a Christ follower sucks the big one because it’s so hard to actually do this. Isn’t it ironic that the two things we rely on the most from God, forgiveness and grace, are the very things we struggle to give freely to others? Truly. It’s at times like these that we have to depend on the grace of God to help us. Well, it is for me that’s for sure.
The other thing is that even when you stand for what’s right in this regard, you’ll inevitably alienate yourself from some of your friends who want to be like the zealots of Jesus’ day and drop the hammer on the enemy. They love you and want to help you annihilate your enemy. You have to admire their heart and appreciate their love for you. But your love for God requires that you stop them and admonish them to lay the offense at the feet of Jesus. If they disagree and persist then you become the enemy of some of your most passionate friends. And the circle gets smaller.
But from the beginning of the biblical story men and women of God blessed their enemies and God rewarded them for it. Abram did it twice in a matter of a couple of pages in Genesis. Even when his nephew Lot greedily and ungratefully chose the better lands and fields for himself when Abram suggested their clans split up due to infighting, Abram graciously gave him his wish. And then when Lot got his butt in a sling Abram came and bailed him out. We all know how this story turned out in the end.
And Jesus prayed while hanging on the cross, “Lord, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Perhaps this is one of the stories Peter had in mind when he wrote “For this finds favor, if for the sake of conscience toward God a person bears up under sorrows when suffering unjustly…But if when you do what is right and suffer for it you patiently endure it, this finds favor with God.”
