Grace Enacted

This little “experiment” called Grace – A Community of Faith continues to be one of the best things of which I’ve ever been a part. We’ve managed to meet together on the Lord’s Day for four weeks now, and every gathering has been a blessing to me – and I think the others who have been there.

Today was an exceptional demonstration of why I was willing to be a part of this experiment. We met briefly and sang a few songs, looked briefly at a crucial biblical text that spoke to what we were about to do, participated together in the Lord’s Supper, and were out the door! Out the door not to rush home or head to a restaurant – but out the door to serve the Newnan/Coweta community in the name of Christ.

Two of our group had made arrangements for us to go to One Roof, a ministry supported by churches in Coweta County that is doing some amazing work in the name of Christ. Derenda, the ministry leader, gave us a quick tour of the place and passionately told us about the kinds of ministry they do and the outreach they have all over the county.  She also told us about some of the difficult moments when they have to say no to those in need. Among the things that stood out to me in her tour was that they were out of diapers and nearly out of breakfast foods.

Our group brought toiletries – deodorant, tooth paste, tooth brushes, and other similar things – because we were told how low their supplies for those items were. Friday afternoon, they ran out of tooth paste – the last two clients didn’t get any – but thankfully that won’t happen Monday morning!

We spent several hours separating and arranging a huge pile of food donated through a recent food drive in Coweta County. That isn’t a particularly glamorous task – but it is an important one. Volunteers on Monday and for the next several months will have easy access to food that can help people in need have a decent meal. I’m pretty confident that’s the kind of thing Jesus had in mind when, after washing the disciples feet (John 13), He pointed out that what He had just done for them was a paradigm for kingdom people.

Two things stand out to me tonight as I think about today’s experience. One of them is what a great resource Coweta County has in One Roof. They have figured out ways to do much with little and are doing it well. Derenda’s prayer at the end of our service time today reminded me of the mission of the church “to the least of these” in ways that encourage and challenge.

The second thing that stands out is what a great experience it is to be a part of a group that is so willing to step outside of the normal way of doing things and find a way to be Jesus to the world. I’m not in any way discounting the importance of the church being together in fellowship to worship, to learn, to pray, to give, to . . . But I am convinced that few things have done more for my own spirit than what I saw today.

If you’re interested in the experiment, all I can say is we would welcome your presence!

Our Hearts

Olin Hay, who taught homiletics at Atlanta Christian College for many years, often said to his preaching students, “you need a pastor’s heart.” No student could possibly have taken one of his classes without knowing that, as a preacher, “you need a pastor’s heart.”

While I certainly don’t disagree with that sentiment, I would take it a step further and say that we all need such a heart – not just pastors, preachers, missionaries, youth ministers, and the whole list of those who make ministry vocational in their lives.

I never took one of Olin Hay’s classes so I can’t say exactly how he would have defined such a heart, but for me, no text in the New Testament speaks more forcefully to that idea than 2 Corinthians 11:28. “And, besides other things, I am under daily pressure because of my anxiety for all the churches.” (NRSV)

What “other things?” If you read the words that precede this verse, you find Paul very uncharacteristically listing a whole host of rather dreadful “things” that have happened to him. Everything from having been stoned to ship wrecked is in the list. It’s a list that it is unlikely that anyone reading this would ever experience. 

But his heart is so devoted to the church – that he can say “besides these things” – seemingly in the sense of “even more than the awful, physical persecutions I have experienced in my walk with Christ, is my concern for the wellbeing of the church.” And it isn’t just “a church” but “all the churches.” Nothing parochial here – he seems to have this global passion for the church and its ministry.

If that isn’t a “pastor’s heart,” then I’m not sure one could be defined. Apparently Paul wasn’t one of those “evangelists” who assumed that winning people to Christ was all there was to do, and once done, to move on to something else.  He certainly is an example of an evangelist with no equal – but it didn’t stop there.

In a world where church mission ministries are often focused on finding support for those missions which are primarily evangelistic, we should rejoice because of such passion “to make disciples.” But at the same time, we can forget that the other half of the great commission is “to teach them to observe . . .” That ingredient can’t be missing if our hearts and the hearts of churches we serve are to have a “pastor’s heart.”

May God continue to use His church to not only “to win the lost,” but “to nurture the saved” so that the work of the church might continue to have an impact on the world.

Almost Bible

For a number of years after his retirement, Fred Craddock led preaching seminars up in Blue Ridge, Georgia at Cherry Log Christian Church twice a year. Along with several of my preaching friends, I tried to attend as many of those Monday morning preaching seminars as possible. They were never disappointing.

Among the more memorable lectures I heard addressed the topic of “the challenge of preaching today.” At the top of Dr. Craddock’s list that day was what he called “almost Bible.” Simply put, he suggested that one of the real challenges preachers in our age must face is to be sensitive to the fact that there is a lot of “almost Bible” out there in the public understanding of Scripture.

I remember thinking that morning that one of the places where that is certainly true is in the “almost Bible’s” civic Jesus, as compared to the Bible’s Jesus.  There often is a little truth attached to the civic Jesus, but by and large he is a creature made in our own image and tends to think that our way of life is pretty much what God had in mind when He made Adam and Eve.

On the other hand, the Bible’s Jesus is not a Jesus we would likely have made up. He calls us to live “in the world, but not of the world.” He thinks that “denying self, taking up a cross, and following after Him” is the ideal way to act as a disciple. And, in shocking ways, He seems to think that the most appropriate response to Him when we meet Him is summarized in one word – Repent! And He seems to enjoy saying “repent” to the very religious.

In some ways, the most glaring “almost Bible” stuff we hear in our culture is that the whole Jesus story is simply designed to mean that when we die, we go to heaven! Certainly it can’t be overlooked that the coming of Jesus did deal with the fact that we were alienated from God in ways that we can’t correct on our own. But all of that is only part of the story – not the whole story.

He not only rescues us from our hopeless situation before God – he transfers us into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son. In Colossians 1:13,14, Paul encourages the believers in Colossae to give thanks to God the Father because “He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (ESV) We haven’t exhausted the Jesus story when we celebrate that we have been rescued from the power of sin and death – as huge a story as that actually is. We are a “rescued and transferred” people who are called to live out the implications of our rescue – and it is that reality, rescue and transfer, that Paul describes as “redemption, the forgiveness of sin.”

As I think about what I want my own life to look like in this new year we have been given, I’m thinking that I ought to commit myself to living a “transferred life” before God. I won’t let the “almost Bible” I hear lead me astray into thinking that the Christian gospel is only about dying and going to heaven. 

Actually – it ought to be obvious from the way Jesus taught us to pray – “your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” “Transferred people” are working to fulfill that prayer every day!

Experiments!

Experiments – they can fascinate us, disappoint us, and either provide great new insights or prove to be dangerous! But what a different world ours would be were it not for the willingness of all sorts of people to experiment.

That being said, may I take a moment of your time to tell you about what I sometimes refer to as “the Newnan experiment?”

Starting on the first Sunday of 2013 – January 6 at 10:00 a.m. to be precise – a “community of faith” will begin meeting at the Newnan Community Theater (24 First Avenue, Newnan) for worship, fellowship, and prayer. We’ve chosen to describe ourselves with this idea: Grace: A Community of Faith. I’d like to call it “a kingdom outpost” (the phrase I use to describe the church and its ministries) but in our culture, that phase would not likely be understood in the way I mean it – so we are, simply put, a community of faith characterized by grace.

About five years ago, I read a phrase from Reggie McNeil that continues to haunt me. In his book, Missional Renaissance, he describes the church in western culture as “on life support.” That’s a bit frightening for one who has spent his entire adult life either preaching in a local church or helping to educate young believers in a Christian educational setting. To make matters more compelling, the Pew Research  Group (Pew 2012) says that 34% of our youngest adults (18-22 year olds) say they have no interest in religion at all. Then there is the Barna Group (Barna 2011) telling us that 84% of Christians 18-29 years old admit that they have no idea how the Bible applies to their field of professional interests. 

What I believe to be true is that the research being done by people like Reggie McNeil, Dave Kinnamon, Gabe Lyons, and others should get the attention of people like me. My conversations with a lot of 18-29 year olds sounds a lot like Kinnamon’s statistics. And, to add but another layer of concern, I’ve discovered that you don’t have to be 18-29 years old to feel some of those same frustrations.

Before anyone reminds me, I know there are some notable exceptions when it comes to whether or not the church can attract 18-29 year olds. The Georgia Dome is currently filled with young adults who are in love with Jesus and have made the Passion Conference a “must go” event. There are also some impressive churches in the Atlanta area – where young adults are involved. There isn’t one bone in my body that thinks those mega-churches are bad or not worthwhile. But not every young adult has access to those kinds of ministries or is even comfortable in those kinds of ministries. And, if the answer to our culture’s need for “renewal and restoration” could be accomplished by a few great mega-churches scattered about over town, then why does today’s AJC read like it does?

At some level, experiments seek to discover new ways to make “two plus two equal four.” This particular experiment is designed, at some level, to see if there is a way to help young adults (and any others, there is no age limit!) feel better about the idea of “church” and to discover that the Jesus story actually does apply to their place in life – regardless of what that place might be. Hopefully the product will be either a level of engagement in the kingdom of God that is new, or a re-engagement in the kingdom of God that is refreshing!

As a community of faith characterized by grace, we recognize that we meet together as sinners who desire the power of the gospel to make us into what God has called us to be – which means we have in common with every human alive the fact that we are sinners. Grace implies that you come to Jesus for cleansing, not that you clean your act up and then come to Jesus. For some, the cleaning thing happens pretty easily – but for others, it is a long-term project. Whichever the case – grace continues its pursuit of us and communities of faith who allow the gospel to set the agenda, never quit pursuing either.

For decades, “church” as we know it was able to make “two plus two equal four” for lots and lots of us in our culture. But that may not be true any longer for young adults, and quite a few older adults who have simply drifted away from any meaningful relationship with Jesus that leads to redeeming and restoring the world. 

Experiments are just that – experiments. There is no guarantee at the end that the desired result will be achieved. But one thing for sure can be known – unless you experiment, you never know whether the idea works. 

On our first Sunday together, worship will focus on the idea that the church, as the body of Christ, should view itself as incarnational – and we are called “to be Jesus to the world.” From there we will look at ourselves as peacemaking people who have discovered meaning to life that transcends all of the issues that surround us daily. On the last Sunday of January, after a brief worship time – we will go out and find a place to be peacemaking servants of Christ. 

But, it is simply an experiment – one I hope and pray (and have been hoping and praying for a long time) will work. My prayer is that it will become a kind of “kingdom outpost” that will help expand the kingdom of God in a way that renews and restores the world in which we have been called to live!

If you’re not currently engaged in a meaningful way in the life of God’s church – we would love to have you visit with us this Sunday.

The Light Is Shining - Do We Get It?

It was around Easter time a number of years ago and a series of deadly tornadoes swept through eastern Alabama and western Georgia – destroying homes, businesses, and churches; tragically killing a number of people getting ready to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. I remember listening to a sermon from the late Frank Harrington, preacher of Peachtree Presbyterian Church, who noted that evil seems to especially raise its very ugly head at these special times of Christian celebration.

Here we are again as a culture, in these days of Advent leading up to the celebration of the birth of our Lord – and evil seems to have especially raised its very ugly head at this special time of Christian celebration. The headline on the front page of today’s Atlanta Journal-Constitution sums up well the reality of moments like this: “Details emerge, but few answers.”

On this Sunday morning in the middle of Advent, Christians are going to church to worship God with serious questions on their hearts. It is interesting to observe how many believers I have either heard say or read a comment on Facebook that said something similar to “Lord, come quickly.” In an odd kind of way that comment reflects the reality that Advent is actually about preparing for the reappearing of our Lord. Hopefully we won’t forget our own role in preparing for the reappearing of our Lord by being the body of Christ to the world as we expand the rule of the King by expanding His kingdom!

Yet what is also true is that o this Sunday morning in the middle of Advent, lots of non-believers – some of whom want to believe – are staying home watching the news or perhaps watching anything but the news because they can’t stand to hear any more and are wondering what is with a God who allows twenty innocent little children to be murdered.

The apostle John, in the opening chapter of the fourth gospel speaks to moments like this. Two things in particular stand out to me. In John 1:5 he says, “The Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” And then a few sentences down, in verse eleven, he says, “He came into His own, and those who were His own did not receive Him.” In response to our question, “why doesn’t God do something?” I think John would answer, “He has!” No desire here at all to minimize this awful, all but unspeakable tragedy – but I’m not sure solace is found is suggesting God hasn’t done anything about such evil.

If we read a little further in John, we discover “but as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, even to those who believe in His name, who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.” (1:12, 13) The “children of God” as defined here simply don’t do the kind of evil we witnessed on Friday. They simply don’t. The good news of the gospel is that God has acted, once and for all, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth in a way that enables us to renew and restore our God-intended purpose when God made the world in the first place.

Luke tells a story about a man named Simeon (Luke 2:21ff) who is described as “righteous and devout, looking for the consolation of Israel.” In meeting the requirements of their Jewish faith, Mary and Joseph take baby Jesus to the Temple and among the people they meet is Simeon. When he sees the baby Jesus, this old, Spirit-filled man takes the baby into his arms and declares, “Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a Light of revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of Your people Israel.”(2:29-32)

If Simeon is right, then we are confronted with the reality that God has acted; but like those of Jesus’ own time, the “darkness has not comprehended it.” Again, children of God don’t do evil like this. A really sobering question for me is how in the world could a young man like the one who did this get to that point in his life – in an age when the church has so many resources to announce to one and all the good news that in Jesus, God has acted decisively to defeat sin and death? Equally sobering is the fact that we tend to notice the awful expressions of evil, but the pages of the same AJC that announced “but few answers,” almost daily has stories of innocent children killed by evil adults who apparently “have not comprehended” that the Light is shining in the darkness. Yet the “public clergy” in our culture, presumptuous enough to suggest that they speak on behalf of the Kingdom of God, are more interested in who gets elected president; who can or can’t get married; when, if ever is abortion permitted; and, if you live in Georgia, that earth-shattering moral issue of whether or not a convenience store can sell beer on Sunday.

Can there be any wonder that “the darkness doesn’t get it?”

Jesus had lots to say about moments like this – none more convicting than Luke 13. To people who seem to be following Him around and asking thoughtful questions about a tragic expression of evil led by Pilate where innocent blood was shed in the midst of Temple worship, Jesus said, “repent.”

Some will be quick to say that the evil world around us needs to repent. Who could argue that point? But the more thoughtful among us will reflect a little on the brutal reality that if we were more engaged in expanding the kingly rule of Jesus in this world, there would be less news like this awful tragedy and fewer stories in the daily editions of the AJC where this kind of evil happens right around the corner from us.

In that context, the word “repent” is staring me right in the eyes in this season of Advent as we prepare for the coming of our Lord.

Among the Gifts of Christmas

When any of us takes a moment to remember and reflect, chances are we can think of gifts along the way that were given to us at Christmas that impacted us in important ways. I can still remember my first (and only) electric train and an old black and white photo of my Dad helping me put it together on the living room floor on a Christmas morning long ago.

I can remember sitting in the airport in Cincinnati in the wee hours of a morning waiting to fly home for Christmas. Vicki had given me a battery operated, digital calculator that could do basic math – addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. It was a pretty impressive little device in 1973 – especially for a guy whose high school business classes had business machines that could multiply and divide, but to accomplish that task for a fairly simple equation, it took several minutes of some mechanical processes going on that were slow and noisy. But this little calculator – hand-held calculator – could do more complex equations instantly.

Then there is the cross-stitched version of the Greek text of Philippians 2:5 from a student secretary over thirty years ago that still hangs in a prominent place on my office wall.  On that same wall is my favorite Bonhoeffer quote in beautiful calligraphy, a gift from my oldest daughter. And I still think about that cold February Saturday morning where, as a part of a tour, I was able to walk through the dugout and on to the turf of Turner Field, thanks to a Christmas gift from my youngest daughter and her husband.

I understand that often the idea of “gift giving” becomes more “what am I going to get?” than “what can I give?” but I’m not sure all the bashing that goes on about allowing Christmas to be a time of giving to others is exactly the message the world needs to hear from believers. I also understand that sometimes the gift giving thing gets out of hand – I’ve probably been guilty of that myself. But there has to be a better way to address that problem than the blanket condemnation we hear sometimes!

What we must remember is that Among the Gifts of Christmas, is not only the rather extravagant gift of God’s becoming a human to redeem us; but also the gift of calling those who follow Jesus to live an incarnational life as the body of Christ in this world.

John (1:1-14) reminds us that “the Word was with God, and the Word was God” and that “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.” And Paul, writing to believers in Philippi, (Philippians 2:5-11) tells us of one who “though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness.”

That gift – a gift described as one from which “we have all received grace upon grace” (John 1:16) – means that God would “rescue us from the power of darkness and transfer us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.” (Colossians 1:13,14) That transfer is so real, that Paul can say of his own life as a prisoner on behalf of Gentiles who now follow Jesus, “I am now rejoicing in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am completing what is lacking in Christ’s afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church.” (Colossians 1:24)

Among the blessed gifts of Christmas – the most extravagant of the extravagant – is the reality that in God’s coming in the form of Jesus of Nazareth, He makes it possible for you and me – the body of Christ – to continue to be Jesus to the world. No mere metaphor, the idea of the church as the body of Christ is our incarnational mission to the world.

During this blessed season of Christmas, may we all proclaim a message of “grace upon grace” with the promise of rescue and transfer.

My Kingdom v. His Kingdom

Thanksgiving came as early this year as it can come, which among other things means that there are more shopping days between Black Friday and when Santa Claus comes as possible. It also means that if you use a real tree for your Christmas tree and typically put it up the week of Thanksgiving – you need to come up with a plan to keep it going for a week longer than usual. 

For those of us who are believers, this season can create all sorts of internal conflicts. We know that Christmas is actually about the coming of Christ into the world to redeem God’s creatures and God’s creation. We know that because He came – “the Word became flesh and dwelt among us” as John says – the season of Advent (that begins next Sunday on the Christian Calendar) can truly be about preparing for His reappearing in glory. We even know that He is King of a kingdom that is not of this world, as John 18:36ff so powerfully says.

But we also know and experience the reality of living in this world as we wait for the reappearing of the King in glory. You don’t need me or anyone else to tell you that can be a challenge!

Think about it. For some of us, our personal preference wasn’t elected in the recent election cycle in our country. That could be the candidate I wanted to be President of the United States or the candidate I wanted to be County Coroner and a whole hosts of other offices. For others, our favorite football team, the one that began the season with all sorts of promise, isn’t even bowl eligible, much less in line for a national championship. Then there are those who stood in line for hours in anticipation of Black Friday sales – we even missed our family’s Thanksgiving Dinner – only to discover that the last of the sixty inch, HD, flat screen televisions at Walmart was given to the person in front of me in the line. Then there’s my friend who put her 23 pound turkey in the kitchen sink on Thanksgiving morning, and the sink collapsed down into the cabinet.

Life in “my kingdom” can get a bit messy. I haven’t even mentioned the price of gas, the unemployment numbers, how many foreclosures happen in Georgia every day, and the cost of college tuition. We can’t forget the challenging issues associated with the cost of health care, health insurance, Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid. 

And don’t forget, while you’re on this journey to realizing that “my world” isn’t all that it is cracked up to be – that the Middle East, ever a bit testy, is in one of those very testy moments that makes even the most optimistic among us stagger with cynicism. Just thinking about what in the world (this world) is going on in Egypt is enough to give one a bit of a pause.

In the Christian Calendar, the season of “Ordinary Time” comes to an end with the Sunday before Advent. This particular Sunday is sometimes called “The Feast of Christ the King,” and because Thanksgiving was so early this year, was actually this past Sunday. The Feast of Christ the King celebrates the reality that Christ truly is King, and “His Kingdom” is not deterred by “my kingdom.” 

Listen to Jesus in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is, my kingdom is not from here.”

In response to the question of James and John about their own place in His kingdom, Jesus reminds them that “His kingdom” and “my kingdom” are not the same. Why? Because in “His Kingdom,”  we follow a King who said, “For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

How will that work out when all is said and done? Pretty well,  at least if you allow Paul to offer an answer. “Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Philippians 2:9-11)

But in “My Kingdom” there is always this sense of how could this be. Again, Paul comes to the rescue by reminding us “He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.” (Colossians 1:17) Apparently the King of this other Kingdom, the one not of this world, is able to hold this world together, even if it seems like “my kingdom” is falling apart all around me.

We are on the longest possible journey from Thanksgiving to Santa Claus right now. It will, no doubt, have a few ups and downs that can thrill us and challenge us. We are living this out on “this fragile earth, our island home,” fully aware that there is tension between “my kingdom” and “His Kingdom.”

May that tension be tempered and tuned by our confidence that “when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is.” (1 John 3:2)