God Is Wrathful Because God Is Love

                                                                   (Monroe County)

Yale theologian Miroslav Volf personally witnessed the horrors of the Bosnian war. Out of this context he wrote,

I used to think that wrath was unworthy of God. Isn’t God love? Shouldn’t divine love be beyond wrath? God is love, and God loves every person and every creature. That’s exactly why God is wrathful against some of them. My last resistance to the idea of God’s wrath was a casualty of the war in former Yugoslavia, the region from which I come. According to some estimates, 200,000 people were killed and over 3,000,000 were displaced. My villages and cities were destroyed, mypeople shelled day in and day out, some of them brutalized beyond imagination, and I could not imagine God not being angry. Or think of Rwanda in the last decade of the past century, where 800,000 people were hacked to death in one hundred days!

​How did God react to the carnage? By doting on the perpetrators in a grandparently fashion? By refusing to condemn the bloodbath but instead affirming the perpetrators basic goodness? Wasn’t God fiercely angry with them? Though I used to complain about the indecency of the idea of God’s wrath, I came to think that I would have to rebel against a God who wasn’t wrathful at the sight of the world’s evil. God isn’t wrathful in spite of being love. God is wrathful because God is love.

 Volf, Free of Charge: Giving and Forgiving in a Culture Stripped of Grace, (Zondervan 2005) pp. 138-139

As I read this, I thought of H. Richard Niebuhr's famous quote, as he critiqued a soft and shallow theological liberalism.

"A God without wrath

brought men without sin

into a kingdom without judgment

through the ministrations of

a Christ without a cross."

(For more on the love and wrath of God, see Kevin Kinghorn and Stephen Travis, But What About God's Wrath? The Compelling Love Story of Divine Anger.)

Teaching and Preaching in New York City July 4 -10

 

I'll be teaching and preaching July 4-5-6 at Faith Bible Church and Seminary (Chinese), in Queens, NYC.

Friday night, July 4 - "The Presence of God Motif in the Bible"

Saturday morning, July 5 - "Abiding in Christ"

Saturday afternoon, July 5 - "Experiencing God's Presence"

Sunday morning, July 6, 9:30 AM - "The Marks of a Disciple"

Sunday morning, July 6, 11 AM - "Ten Things I Have Learned About Praying"

Sunday afternoon, July 6, 2 PM - "Ten Things I Have Learned About Praying"

T-W-Th, July 8-9-10, 9 AM - 4 PM - I'll teach my Spiritual Transformation class in Faith Bible Seminary. (How God Changes the Human Heart)

This course is taught in English with full Chinese translation.

Faith Bible Theological Seminary 

Foucault's Non-Progressivism ("The endlessly repeated play of dominations")

 

Green Lake, Wisconsin

James K. A. Smith writes of Foucault's non-progressivism as essential to Foucault's theory.

"As Nietzsche earlier claimed in his Genealogy of Morals, good and evil are just names that we give to the power interests of the strong versus those of the weak. Thus “in a sense,” Foucault concludes, “only a single drama is ever staged in this ‘non-place,’ the endlessly repeated play of dominations.” The story of humanity is not the Enlightenment fiction of perpetual progress or the constant progression of the race, as Kant (and Richard Rorty) suggest, but rather simply the shift from one combat to another, from one form of domination to another."

(Smith, James, Who's Afraid of Postmodernism? p. 87)

Identity - Who You Are, and Who You Are Not

(Green Lake, Wisconsin)

(Since 1977 I have taught spiritual formation and transformation at several seminaries, retreats, and conferences.) 

In my spiritual formation classes for pastors and Christian leaders I begin class by sending the students out to pray for an hour, using Psalm 23 as their meditative focus. My instruction is simply: when God speaks to you, write it down.

Upon returning from their hour with God, many of them will have heard God tell them, "I love you." Some have not heard those words in a long time. This is a powerful time of sharing.

This gets at the heart of who we are. Henri Nouwen wrote that he was "firmly convinced that the decisive moment of Jesus's public life was his baptism, when he heard the divine affirmation, "You are my Beloved on whom my favor rests." (Spiritual Direction, 28) 

When God tells someone "You are my beloved," or "I love you," the most intimate truth about that person is revealed. God loves you: this is the ultimate truth about you. Nouwen says "the ultimate spiritual temptation is to doubt this fundamental truth about ourselves and trust in alternative identities." (28)

Who are you? Nouwen counsels us not to define ourselves by the following alternative identities.

1. Do not define yourself as: "I am what I do." He writes: "When I do good things and have a little success in life, I feel good about myself. But when I fail, I start getting depressed." (Ib.) To define yourself by what you do is to live on a spiritual and emotional roller coaster that is a function of your accomplishments.

2. Do not define yourself as: "I am what other people say about me." "What people say about you has great power. When people speak well of you, you can walk around quite freely. But when somebody starts saying negative things about you, you might start feeling sad. When someone talks against you, it can cut deep into your heart. Why let what others say about you - good or ill - determine what you are?" (Ib., 29)

3. Do not define yourself as: "I am what I have." Don't let your things and your stuff determine your identity. Nouwen writes: "As soon as I lose any of it, if a family member dies, if my health goes, or if I lose my property, then I can slip into inner darkness." (Ib.)

Too much energy goes into defining ourselves by deciding "I am what I do," "I am what others say about me," or "I am what I have." Nouwen writes: "This whole zig-zag approach is wrong." You are not, fundamentally, what you do, what other people say about you, or what you have. You are someone who is greatly loved by God.

Today, God speaks to the deep waters of your heart and says, "You are my beloved son or daughter, and on you my favor rests." To hear that voice and trust in it is to reject the three alternative ways of self-definition and enter into freedom and joy.

**
Three of my books are:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

Encounters with the Holy Spirit (co-edited with Janice Trigg)

Wanted: The Perfect Pastor

 

(Me and Linda, enjoying life more than we should.)

I once knew a pastor who was so concerned about what his church family thought of him, that he always wore a suit, even while mowing the lawn on a hot summer day.

Many years ago, on a Wednesday afternoon, I was food shopping in the local Meijer store. Someone from our church family saw me. When I got home I found they had called one of our church leaders and "reported" me. "I saw John shopping today, on a Wednesday afternoon. He should have been in his office working!"

Sadly, this is not atypical.

I thought of this sad story today while reading some Michael Brown (devotionally - so please don't report me!). 

After three inspiring days with Michael this summer, I am now feasting on revivalist literature, some of which is written by Brown.

Here's a Brown quote, from Revolution in the Church: Challenging the Religious System with a Call for radical Change. (This is not my situation. I thank God all the time for my church family! But I talk with a lot of pastors who, sadly, can relate to this.)

"Most pastors are grossly underpaid for the hours they put in, often facing retirement, weary and worn out, with very little in the way of benefits, housing or pension. This satirical want ad by one church says it all:" 

Wanted: the perfect pastor. 

Approximately 28 years old, 

with 30 years’ preaching experience. 

Must have a heart for the youth, 

work well with the elderly, 

participate in church sports, 

visit every hospitalized member. 

Need top-flight negotiating skills, 

good singing voice, 

and expertise in repair of office equipment, 

church van, 

and fellowship hall plumbing. 

Office hours 7 a.m. till 10 p.m. 

Salary $100 per week. 

Will preferably tithe $50 per week, 

wear fashionable suits, 

have a large library. 

Must participate in evangelism outreaches, 

make 30 calls per day on church members, 

always be in the office when parishioners phone. 

Walking on water a plus.

(Brown, Kindle Locations 1894-1897) 

Character Matters

 

 

I am a case study in character formation. Because I have needed it so badly.

N.T. Wright, in After You Believe: Why Christian Character Matters, identifies four cardinal virtues that characterize actual followers of Jesus. They are: humility, charity, patience, and chastity. This "composite of virtues" is what True Humanity looks like. Jesus exemplifies such humanity. 

Jesus-followers are to look like Jesus, just as a disciple is to look like his mentor, as a student looks like his teacher.

Wright writes:

"It is thus more or less impossible to speak of God with any conviction or effect if those who profess to follow Jesus are not exemplifying humility, charity, patience, and chastity. These are not optional extras for the especially keen, but the very clothes which the royal priesthood must “put on” day by day. If the vocation of the royal priesthood is to reflect God to the world and the world back to God (the world, that is, as it was made to be and as, by God’s grace, it will be one day), that vocation must be sustained, and can only be sustained, by serious attention to “putting on” these virtues, not for the sake of a self-centered holiness or pride in one’s own moral achievement, but for the sake of revealing to the world who its true God really is." (p. 247)

Forget speaking of God to others if your heart is proud, miserly, irritable, and perverted. Obviously, Jesus hasn't made an impact on such a person's life, so why would anyone listen to them, about anything? 

Christian character matters, not as a means to gaining God's acceptance, but as marks of real, transforming Christianity.

The Jesus-follower who follows Jesus into his ever-presence will inexorably be morphed into a humble person who is free from the need for self-congratulation and self-adulation, into a loving person whose heart's modus operandi is dialed into the needs of others, into a person who can wait because their heart has great enduring staying power, and into a pure thing whose sexual desires have been freed from the objectification of others.

All of this is, contrary to our kingdom-of-darkness culture, counter-intuitive. Yet it is the road to freedom.

People truly free in Jesus possess these Christlike interior qualities.

Anthropic Non-Progressivism

 

 

In technology, in medicine, in the sciences, humanity has progressed. For example, when I was in grad school at Northwestern University, I bought a refurbished IBM Selectric typewriter for $900. This thing was heavy enough to do serious medieval damage to anything it was launched at. My dissertation was 450 pages long. If I had to edit something on page 20, guess what I had to do. I typed and re-typed and re-typed my doctoral dissertation on this thing which, at the time, was state of the art.  Thankfully, at this moment, I am writing this post on my Asus laptop computer. 

That's technological progress. But humanity, as a whole, has not morally and spiritually progressed. I am calling this anthropic non-progressivism. Here's an example from Walter Rauschenbusch's Christianity and the Social Crisis. He writes,

"History is never antiquated, because humanity is always fundamentally the same. It is always hungry for bread, sweaty with labor, struggling to wrest from nature and hostile men enough to feed its children. The welfare of the mass is always at odds with the selfish force of the strong. The exodus of the Roman plebeians and the Pennsylvania coal strike, the agrarian agitation of the Gracchi and the rising of the Russian peasants—it is all the same tragic human life.

(Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis in the 21st Century: The Classic That Woke Up the Church, p. 1.) 

Join Me and Linda for Our Favorite Conference - June 28 - July 2

 

Go HERE. 

A Disciple of Jesus Lives “In” Him.

 

(Worship and the Reality of God: An Evangelical Theology of Real Presence)

One could argue that the most important word in the letters of Paul is the tiny, two-letter preposition 'in'?  In.   'In' is a container metaphor. I am now in my home office. Which means I share whatever is now transpiring in my home office.

'In' is a participatory metaphor. (My doctoral dissertation was on metaphor theory.) Such as, I am in a marriage. I am a co-participant in a lifelong, covenantal union with my wife Linda.  

As my Teacher, Jesus teaches me about 'in'. Gary Moon writes:  

"According to [Lewis] Smedes, Paul’s writings are driven by one consuming theme. One hundred sixty-four times Paul makes reference either to our being “in Christ” or to Christ’s being “in” us. Apparently, the apostle believed there was something even more important and transforming than the moral teachings of Jesus. It was the great mystery revealed. It was the present possibility of entering into union with Christ—the center and condition of authentic human existence." (Moon, Apprenticeship with Jesus:Learning to Live Like the Master, pp. 44-45)

As a follower of Jesus, You are in Christ! You share in things that are now transpiring with the trinitarian being of God. Therefore, abide in him. 

Moon writes:  "I don’t believe the transforming power of Christ is present with us now because he once said, “Love your neighbor as yourself,” but because the living Christ can love my neighbor through me by being in me. The difference here can be as vast as the chasm that separates reading a prayer about God from experiencing prayer with God." (pp. 45-46; emphasis mine) 

This is big. 

I bless you with an abiding life of experiencing the reality of union in Christ!

Influence: Like Father, Like Child

Influence is greater than numbers. The question is not, "How big is your church?" The real question is, "How is your church's influence?"

You could be twelve, and salt the world with the good news of the Kingdom. You could be twelve hundred, and be an audience inside a saltshaker.

How is your influence going? Which way is it going? Because of you, are people better, or worse?

Every father influences his children, for worse, or for better. My father influenced me for better. 

I remember seeing dad read his Bible, usually in the evening before he went to bed. Dad read his Bible so much that his thumb wore through the leather cover. I have it now. Here it is.

I received my own leather-covered Bible when I was confirmed in our Lutheran Church. I was twelve years old. My mother put my Bible somewhere - I didn't know where and I did not care. I never picked it up and read it.

Until I was 21. That's when Jesus rescued me out of a deep enslavement to evil. My life began to change for the better! And, I needed a Bible.

I drove to my parents' home. I asked, "Mom, do you know where my Bible is?"

She got it for me. I began to read. And read. I wore the leather out on it so much that the cover finally broke off. I still have this Bible. Here it is.

Like father, like child, right?

As the apostle Paul wrote:

Follow my example,

as I follow the example of Christ.

1 Cor. 11:1

And,

Join together in following my example, brothers and sisters,

and just as you have us as a model,

keep your eyes on those who live as we do.

Philippians 3:17

A Disciple Grows in Compassion

 (I'm re-posting this for a friend.)

​Jesus looked on the crowds and, 

seeing they were like sheep without a shepherd, 

had compassion on them.  

Matthew 9:36

In my fifty-four years of following Jesus, my compassion for people has grown.

The word compassion means to feel with others. Jesus told me, years ago, that my capacity for feeling with others must increase. Here is one way Jesus has mentored me in compassion.  

I had just finished my seminary degree. My plans were to go immediately to a doctoral program. This did not happen. I applied to two universities. Both applications were too late. I would have to take a year off my studies.  

I needed a job. My sister-in-law Lora was working as a teacher at United Cerebral Palsy Center of Will County, Illinois. She suggested I apply as a teacher's assistant.

I interviewed with the Director of the United Cerebral Palsy Center. Her name was Gretchen Lantz. For part of the interview she took me to the boys' bathroom. She said, "I don't want to mislead you. You will be spending a lot of time in this room toileting handicapped boys and young men."  

I took the position. Over the next year I fell in love with students like James, Helen, David, Jimmy, Tony, James, and Gail. My heart aches a bit as I write these names. I grew to feel with them. That feeling is still part of me. Jesus, my Lord and Teacher, had a brilliant idea for me. He was mentoring me in having a heart of compassion.

When the year was over, I enrolled in a doctoral program at Northwestern University. I continued working as a teacher's assistant at the Cerebral Palsy Center for two additional summers. The disabled students had become my instructors.  

I began to look at others in order to understand, not judge. The more understanding I gained, the more I felt with them. Just as Jesus is able to “sympathize with our weaknesses,” so am I.  

This is how disciples of Christ feel. Apprentice yourself to Jesus, and you will experience the same.  

I would not be Jesus's disciple if I looked down on the people Jesus came to rescue. In my weakness, Jesus came to me and loved me. In the same way, I am to love others.  

Disciples of Christ go deeper. This is where the Pharisee missed it, as he said, “Thank God that I am not like these other horrible people.” He failed to understand that he was. The result was, no compassion.  

The secret to a compassionate heart is understanding. The more I comprehend about a person, the more I feel as they feel. The more I feel as they feel, the more I love.  

I want to be more like Jesus! He sympathizes with my weaknesses. His influence causes me to grow in compassionate understanding of others. Who am I to look down on others in their infirmities?  

My dear brothers and sisters, I long for this to be your experience.

DECLARATIONS  

I am increasing in compassion towards others.  

I focus on understanding people, not judging them.  

I know that understanding always precedes evaluation.

My heart goes out to people who are struggling.  

I am a rescuer of people.  

As a student in the School of Jesus, I am learning how to love as Jesus loves.

(From my book 31 Letters to the Church on Discipleship.)

True Praying Breeds Compassion for Others

                                                               (Praying at Redeemer)

1 John 2:7-11 tells me -  If I say I know God and love him but hate my beloved Christian brothers and sisters, I'm walking in darkness and blindness. Since God has no fellowship with darkness (in him there is no darkness at all), I disfellowship myself in the act of hating.

These verses haunt me, because I have hated other Christians. At the point of my hatred I have not known, loved, or followed Jesus. Worshiping Jesus as Lord on Sunday morning and hating people is just acting, and hypocritical.

A Jesus-follower who hates others is a contradiction. Because "God so loved the world," right?

The antidote to my hate-filled heart is a Spirit-transformed, Jesus-shaped heart. So, I am praying for a heart of love.

I want to look at others with the same compassion Jesus had. I want to love and forgive others from the heart, as Jesus did when he hung on the cross. I want the freedom Jesus had from a spirit of victimization.

How can this happen? One way is in the act of praying for others. True praying breeds compassion. And togetherness.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer writes:
"A Christian fellowship lives and exists by the intercession of its members for one another, or it collapses. I can no longer condemn or hate a brother for whom I pray, no matter how much trouble he causes me. His face, that hitherto may have been strange and intolerable to me, is transformed in intercession into the countenance of a brother for whom Christ died, the face of a forgiven sinner. This is a happy discovery for the Christian who begins to pray for others."[1]

---

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Life Together, 86

In the School of Jesus I Learn to Love One Another

 

                                              (Linda and I bought these on our honeymoon.)

In July Linda and I fly to New York City, where I will preach six times at Faith Bible Church in Queens, and then teach from 9 - 4, for three days, in Faith Bible Seminary.

One of my messages will be on "Marks of a Disciple of Jesus."

I'm taking time today to review my notes. One mark is this: Disciples of Jesus love one another. But of course. That's the mark of a Christian, right? People will know we are Christians by our love. In John 13:34-35 Jesus says: 

“A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

My life with Jesus began when God told me that He loves me. As much as my parents loved me (which was a lot!), I needed to be touched by the One who is love, whose love is without limits. That moment was transcendent and transforming.   

The School of Jesus is a School of Love. All the power, and all the spiritual gifts and natural talents, are nothing if the love of God does not flourish in my heart.

In the 1970s I read Francis Schaeffer's classic book The Mark of the Christian. Love for one another IS THE SIGN of the real thing. In it Schaeffer writes:

"If Jesus has commanded so strongly that we love all men as our neighbors, then how important it is especially to love our fellow Christians. 

If we are told to love all men as our neighbors—as ourselves—then surely, when it comes to those with whom we have the special bonds as fellow Christians—having one Father through one Jesus Christ and being indwelt by one Spirit—we can understand how overwhelmingly important it is that all men be able to see an observable love for those with whom we have these special ties. 

Paul makes the double obligation clear in Galatians 6:10: “As we have therefore opportunity, let us do good unto all men, especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” He does not negate the command to do good to all men. But it is still not meaningless to add, “especially unto them who are of the household of faith.” 

This dual goal should be our Christian mentality, the set of our minds; we should be consciously thinking about it and what it means in our one-moment-at-a-time lives. It should be the attitude that governs our outward observable actions." (pp. 16-17)

The Three Greatest Forgiveness Movie Scenes I Have Seen

 

I can barely watch these cinematic scenes of forgiveness without holding back tears.

"Places In the Heart." When Linda and I saw this in a theater, the movie's ending shocked me with its truth and beauty. For some context see here. 

"The Color Purple." Traveling blues singer Shug Avery has been estranged from her father for decades, because of her decision to sing secular music. In this scene, as the choir sings "Maybe God Is Tryin' to Tell You Something," Shug decides to return to her estranged father in an act of repentance and reconciliation.

"The Mission." A killer, who insists on carrying his sins forever, is forgiven and set free by the very people he has been persecuting. This is what forgiveness looks like, and feels like.

Transitioning to a Presence-Driven Church: Step One

 

(Grand Haven, Michigan)

When I do a "Presence-Driven Church conference or retreat, some ask the question, "What do we do now?" Here is how I see this.

Step One in transitioning to a Presence-Driven Church is this: the pastors/leaders  must engage in the ongoing abiding life. 

Do not view these teachings as tools for ministry. Rather, see yourself as instruments of righteousness being formed by the Father's hands. This is all about relationship with God, not programming the church. You need to spend time alone with God, otherwise you will not really understand, and you will not be credible.

Seek God, spend much time with God, for the sake of your own restoration and transformation. Begin to live in constant, abiding renewal.

Along the way, share stories of what God is doing, transformationally, in you. 

It is crucial that you not try to program this, or strive to make things happen. This is a slow-cooker, not a microwave.

In my experience, many Westernized pastors do not do this. And, among those who attend my classes and seminars, most do not continue in this. They fall back into the rut of, "I don't have enough time to pray."

For many pastors the praying life will be a revolutionary change. There will be resistance. Therefore, begin today, not tomorrow. Carve out relational time with God. This "step" is to continue and grow and increase until the day you stand fully in God's presence.

Remember how God spoke to you at the conference? Remember how restoring and renewing your solitary times with God were? It can be the same today. God did not remain at the conference center. He, Immanuel, is with you, presently. Trust and abide in him.

Don't force the issue with your people. Do not try to make things happen. Of course you want to share your experience with your people. But I suggest deepening the experience in yourself first. Pray, today, like you did at the conference. Do not bypass this step. (Refer to my book Praying about this.)

Slow-cook in God's presence, for weeks. Re-familiarize yourself with your God. "Forget about yourself, concentrate on Him, and worship Him." Tend the fire within.

With greater, growing familiarity, comes increasing discernment. Discernment is in direct proportion to familiarity. God will show you what to do, and when to do it.

Lead by being led. The Lord is your shepherd. You will not be wanting. And, you will bear much fruit.

Find another (or more) pastor-leader, and share together your experiences with God.

Then, along the way, discernment increases. God will lead you to lead your people into the abiding life, into God's beautiful, empowering presence.

When God says "Now!" preach, and teach, out of John chapters 14 & 15. 

***

My leadership book is Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

My Calling in the Culture Wars

 

                                                       (Lake Erie, Monroe, Michigan)

I'm reading Jacques Ellul's Presence in the Modern World. Early in the book Ellul shares his calling from God, hence his raison d'etre, rooted in Romans 12:2: Do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God’s will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will.

I share this calling, too. Ellul explains.

“Do not be conformed to the present age.” There are two possible conformities. The first is voluntary adherence (and for this, it was enough to understand political programs, economic plans, and doctrines). But what drew me more, and what seemed to me to fit the level of Paul’s thinking, was unconscious, involuntary adherence—which is so evident in this present age that we don’t even think about it: these unspoken rules, taboos, and unquestioned truths that form a group’s unconscious and subconscious. The “present age” is filled with evidence of this. But I completely rejected the interpretation by which this “present age” (aiōn) is a kind of metaphysical reality, opposed to the coming kingdom, and always the same in itself. This present age was neither the particular one that Paul inhabited, nor a mysterious entity that was always the same; to me, each generation needed to recognize that it concerns its own age. So I needed to devote myself to discerning the foundations, structures, and components of the present “age,” . . . that is, the twentieth century. To do this, it would be necessary to understand the most important facts and also to interpret them accurately." (Emphasis mine.)

This is why I pay virtually no attention to social media posts and chats and arguments, since they exemplify "unconscious, involuntary adherence" to worldviews and ideologies. As best I can, I am looking at "foundations, structures, and components of the present age." 

More people are needed here.

In Praise of Singleness

(Circle of prayer)

(I'm re-posting this to keep it in play.)

There is nothing wrong with you if you are not married. There may be a lot right with you.

Some of our best friends are single. It's worth noting that Jesus, and the apostle Paul, were single. "Until the Reformation, most of the superstars of Christianity were single." (David Bennett, A War of Loves, p. 127)

When I became a Jesus-follower, at age twenty-one, God told me to lay off trying to date women, and take a full year away from dating. I did. 

That was a wonderful year for me. I began to find out about what Colossians 1:18 calls "the supremacy of Christ." Christ was my "head," I was part of his "body," the body of Christ, his "Church." (Col. 1:18 again)

I felt free from cultural pressure to date. My life-goal was no longer to find a "soul mate," because my soul was mated to Christ. The great quest was to find Christ, to be found in him. I was beginning to understand this. I was allowing God to change me in ways that would be good for any future relationship I might be in.

If you are not dating, or not married, give thanks to God. You have a Pauline opportunity (1 Corinthians 7:8) to draw so very close to the only One who purely loves your soul. Take advantage of this, and rejoice!

If you feel pressure to date and mate ask yourself, where does this come from? I have seen Christian parents who lay pressure on their children to date and get married. Too many times the child ends up marrying anyone, just to please, at least unconsciously, their mother and father. This pressure is not from God. It creates the idolatrous idea that marriage is life's greatest thing. It is not. Like any false god, this will let you down.

I've seen a lot of "Christian" marriages that are toxic, not because of "irreconcilable differences" or "incompatibility," but because of spiritual and emotional immaturity. These marriages are particularly hellish because both partners are Christians. If you are not in a marriage like this, give thanks. You have been spared from a dark existence. And, be thankful if you are not making babies with an adult baby.

Simply because a husband and wife are Christians does not guarantee their marriage will be wonderful. There is a ton of ongoing marital work to be done, and this never ends. Few people count the cost of marriage, and end up paying in ways they never imagined.

I don't want to minimize loneliness. I do want to inform you that there are plenty of lonely people in their marriages. 

There's nothing wrong in desiring and praying for a life partner. There is something wrong with the idea that life will never be flourishing without one. Imagine how Christ feels about that! David Bennett writes: 

"Jesus was an unmarried, childless man in a Jewish society of family values, and a celibate in a Roman society of sexual liberation that mocked singleness. In a world of two-sided sexual obsession, Jesus invited others into pure intimacy, modeled loving friendship, and lived in life-giving singleness." (A War of Loves, p. 129) 

(What if you are in a marriage that is troubled? See my post - How to Save Your Failing Marriage.)

A Minimal Introduction to Theological Minimalism

 

Here is a minimal introduction to something that continues to grow in me.

Leadership and Theological Minimalism

(Cancun - 2/25/19)

Pastors should do two things.

First, they should focus on their own ongoing connectedness to Jesus. They should live the abiding life.

Second, they should teach their people how to do this, how to be branches living in connection with Jesus, the Vine.

As you and your people do this, discernment will come. Your lives will bear much fruit.

That's it. No more steps. No "50 rules of leadership" to follow. No strategizing, just discerning.

Just...  follow... the Holy Spirit. Put all your theological eggs into this basket.

This is "The Lord is my shepherd." This is "He leadeth me."

This is minimalist leadership, minimalist theology. 

I pay a monthly fee to be able to access and listen to every music cd that exists. I listen to multiple genres of music. One of them is minimalism. I listen to Steve Reich and Philip Glass and Brian Eno and their like.

I like minimalist repetition. I like the breathing room it gives me. Mostly, I do not care for over-production. I have a musical suspicion of over-production, and tend to see it as a cover-up for poor musicianship.

The apostle Paul was a minimalist. As Paul traveled from church to church across the first-century Roman Empire, he was not dragging a production team with him. In First  Corinthians 2:1-5 Paul says he did not come to visit the Jesus-followers in Corinth with fog machines, black lights, powerful preaching, great intellectual arguments, stacks of Marshall amps, perfectly timed studio production, quality music, a fair trade coffee bar, tight jeans, stage lighting, creative videos, clocks, and full color glossy programs.

Instead, Paul came minimally, so that God might be worshiped maximally. He writes:

When I came to you, I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.² For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. ³ I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. ⁴ My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, ⁵ so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, but on God’s power.


Paul came with two things:

1. Proclamation
2. Demonstration

Paul showed up with 1) his testimony about God; and 2) a demonstration of the Spirit's power. Nothing else. Because anything more would subtract. Because crowd-pleasing techniques would compete with Christ and him crucified. People might rest their faith on the coffee bar and the jeans and the fog and the volume rather than God's power.

In a Presence-Driven Church there is no need to "put on our best" for the visitors, because God always brings his best whenever two or more are gathered. If God leads you to bring out the special drama, or the kids choir, or the pancake breakfast, then do it out of obedience. Otherwise, God's earth-shattering presence will be more than enough.

Do church as usual. Worship, preach, and pray. Recently at Redeemer I preached about knowing Christ and the power of his resurrection. We prayed for sick people who were there. As far as I can tell, the man who came with the hip out of his socket, which caused him a lot of pain, experienced a healing. As someone told me afterward, "Did you see the smile on his face as the pain had left him? Did you see him walking, carrying his cane but not using it?"

Presence-driven churches are minimalist in these ways:

• They worship
• They experience God
• The gifts of the Spirit are manifested
• God demonstrates his power
• Everyone gets to participate
• Every Sunday is Easter

Beyond that, what more could there be?

***
I develop Theological Minimalism in my two books:

Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God

Leading the Presence-Driven Church

***

Jesus Was a Minimalist

(Wildflowers in our yard)

Christianity. It's not complicated. It was never meant to be.

It is deep. But "deep" is not the same as "complicated."

Jesus spoke simply and spoke deep. He is going after the human heart. Change the human heart, and behavioral change will follow. Jesus reduced all moral commands to one moral command.

Jesus was a theological minimalist. 

So was the apostle Paul.

For Paul, there was only one thing to know: Christ crucified and the power of the resurrection. Minimalist Theology is "One-Thing Theology." (1 Corinthians 2:2) Resolve to know nothing but this.

Jesus' theological minimalism is seen in his simple (not simplistic) counsel for us to become like branches, connected to him who is like a Vine. Everything follows from this. 

Do I like complexity? My PhD (Northwestern University, 1986) is in Philosophical Theology. That should say it all. My studies have taught me many things, one of which is: If there is a God who created us and loves us as his children, and who desires to communicate to us, all of us, then it has to be simple.

I think Karl Barth understood this. In seminary I took a class on Barth's theology. We were assigned portions of Barth's Church Dogmatics to read. One of the assignments was to read a twenty-page footnote. The footnote was in a font half the size of the main text. I see Barth's footnotes like nodules on a vein of a leaf attached to a twig connected to a branch attached to a limb that abides in the trunk whose roots go deep into the earth. For Barth the whole point was really about the trunk and the roots, which were "Jesus loves me, this I know; for the Bible tells me so."

It all comes down to Jesus, and his death and resurrection, which are demonstrations of his love. 

This is not complicated. It is simple. It is not simplistic. It is deep. "Jesus loves us" is the abundant, lavish, fruit-bearing, fertile Minimum. It is the Trunk, in which we as branches are called to abide. From this, all blessings flow.

***

The Apostle Paul was a Minimalist

(World Trade Center 1, NYC)

This is from my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

***
The apostle Paul was a minimalist. As he traveled from church to church, across the first-century Roman Empire, he did not drag a production team with him. In 1 Corinthians 2:1-5, we see that Paul did not visit the Jesus-followers in Corinth with fog machines, black lights, powerful preaching, great intellectual arguments, stacks of Marshall amps, perfectly timed studio production quality music, a fair-trade coffee bar, tight jeans, stage lighting, creative videos, click tracks, and full color glossy programs. Instead, Paul came minimally, so that God might be worshiped maximally. He writes: 

When I came to you, 

I did not come with eloquence or human wisdom 

as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God. 

For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you 

except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 

I came to you in weakness with great fear and trembling. 

My message and my preaching were not with 

wise and persuasive words, 

but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 

so that your faith might not rest on human wisdom, 

but on God’s power. 

Paul arrived with two things: 
1. Proclamation 
2. Demonstration 

Paul shared his testimony about God, and gave a demonstration of the Spirit’s power. Nothing else. No crowd-pleasing techniques would be allowed to compete with Christ, and him crucified. Because if it turned into a production, people might rest their faith on the coffee, the jeans, and the fog, rather than on God’s power.

***

Two-Step Leadership (The Presence-Driven Church)

(I gave these flowers to Linda on Mother's Day.)

The Presence-Driven Leader does not know where they are going. For the most part. This is because they are being led, by God's Spirit.

The Presence-Driven Leader has a long-term strategy, for themselves and for their people. It is simple: abide in Christ. Dwell in God's presence. Resolve to know only one thing: Christ, and him crucified.

Out of the abiding relationship comes The Call. This is a call to follow. The Presence-Driven Leader is the consummate follower.

Presence-Driven Leadership is Two-Step Leadership.

• Step 1 is: Abide in Jesus.
• Step 2 is: follow Jesus.

Then, teach your people to do the same.

That's it. (This is Theological Minimalism.)

In Hebrews 11:8 we read that Abraham went out, not knowing where he was going. Oswald Chambers comments:

"Have you ever “gone out” in this way? If so, there is no logical answer possible when anyone asks you what you are doing. One of the most difficult questions to answer in Christian work is, “What do you expect to do?” You don’t know what you are going to do. The only thing you know is that God knows what He is doing." (Chambers, My Utmost for His Highest)

Linda and I had never been to Israel. One day the opportunity was provided, as a gift. When we arrived we immediately got on a bus, and headed north from Tel Aviv to Mount Carmel. We had an excellent tour guide in the great Bible scholar Hal Ronning. Hal knew the land, we did not. Hal led us. We followed, willingly.

Presence-Driven Leaders lead by following. And teach their flock to do the same. This is more like adventure, a redemptive expedition, a clash of kingdom civilizations, led by the One who holds the future in his hands.


***

My leadership book is: 

Leading the Presence-Driven Church.