"In and "With" as the Keys to the Jesus Life (The Presence-Driven Church)

Monroe County Community College

The key to living the Jesus Life is found in two little words - "in," and "with."

Paul, in his letters to the various Jesus-communities, uses the phrases "in Christ" and "with Christ," and their variations, over 200 times (e.g. "in him," Christ "in us," and so on).

"In" is a container metaphor. Every Jesus-follower is "in Christ." This means union with Christ. I am in Christ and Christ is in me. 

Consider "with Christ." 

• Jesus-followers have died with Christ, 
• have risen with Christ, 
• and will appear in glory with Christ on his return. 
• When Christ died sin was defeated; t
• herefore I, in Christ, am dead to the rule and reign of sin. 
• Sin has, for Christ and therefore for me, lost its power. 
• When Christ was raised death was defeated; 
• therefore, because he lives, I also live and am alive in Christ. 
• Where he moves I move; 
• where he goes I go. 
• I am a new creation, living in a new metaphysical location.

Sadly, the default flesh-system of "religion" is to ignore this core Gospel reality, and instead preach and teach the Moral Code and the utilization of human flesh-power to keep it (what Richard Foster has called "will worship"). Craig Keener says that the best imitations of Christ are just “flesh.”" (Keener, here)

"In" and "with" tell us that living the Jesus life is not about trying harder. N.T. Wright writes:

“One aspect of Christian maturity, and certainly one of the road signs on the road to Christian holiness, is that the mind must grasp the truth: ‘you died, and your life has been hidden with the king, in God!” Once the mind has grasped it, the heart and will start to come on board. And once that happens the way lies open to joyful Christian holiness. Don’t settle for short cuts.” (NTW, C for E, 176; emphasis mine)

It's not imitating Christ, but union with Christ that makes the difference. It's about Christ, living in me and doing his transforming work in me, and I in him, rather than striving to copy him by using will power. (Think of the guilt and share this produces in the church.)

Wright says: 

"The possibility is staggering: that I, a creature, might have my life linked—actually, organically, eternally linked—to the Son of God himself. Like a freight car coupled with an engine, where Jesus goes, I go. What happens to him, happens to me. I follow him and share his life, his character, his suffering, his future, his inheritance, even his reign with the Father.

While this reality, known as the doctrine of "union with Christ," has received a lot of attention throughout Christian history, it is often ignored in the modern church. But it is incredibly good news for those of us who wrestle with the uncertainty and disappointment of life on earth. Because we are "in Christ," because his life is ours, our fundamental life story has already been written."

Orient your heart and mind to things above, to Christ. Set your hearts and minds on who you are, by faith and through grace, in Christ.

In.

With.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. The actuality is staggering.

Women's Conference at Redeemer - Sat., Oct. 14, 7-9 PM

Worship at Redeemer

"Setting the Captives Free” Conference is Sat, Oct. 14th 7-9pm.

Speakers:

Sue Anderson - "Our Identity in Christ"

Lin Andreoli - "The Weapons of Our Warfare"

You will learn how to live out of your new identity in Christ, defend the weak, and defy the strong attacks of the enemy with our weapons of warfare.

Cost: $5. 

Presence-Driven Leaders Don't Focus on Attracting Followers (The Presence-Driven Church)

Monroe County

When I do a seminar or conference, or a seminary class, on leading the Presence-Driven Church, I emphasize that this teaching is not another "tool for ministry." And it is not a strategy for church growth. It is, rather, a life of relationship with God. It looks like this:

1. Meet often with the Father.
2. When the Father directs, obey.

When we are given a directive and obey, there is no strategy involved. When we follow the Father, it is enough to know that he has the game plan. If there is any strategy at all, it is simply 1 and 2 above.

Eugene Peterson writes:

"Against all leadership counsel we have to set Jesus, and not so much figure out how to be leaders from what he said and did but enter into the world that he lived in, the relationships that he cultivated, and assimilate his style. This leadership is not techniques and strategies culled from a superficial reading of the Gospels that knows little of Jesus himself, but a Jesus-leadership spirit, mind, sensitivity. It is a leadership that is conspicuously lacking in the exercise of power and the attraction of followers."
- Eugene Peterson and Marva J. Dawn, The Unnecessary Pastor: Rediscovering the Call, Kindle Locations 2267-2269)

The focus is on obedience, on following Jesus, rather than being attractive to seekers. Remember that a whole lot of us, and uncountable others, have been drawn to Jesus by Jesus himself, without seeker-sensitive add-ons. Jesus has enough drawing power if he is simply lifted up. He doesn't say "If I be lifted up where there is sufficient ambiance..."

Obedience to Christ has drawing power when it is for the sake of Christ, and not for the sake of drawing people.


***
My recent book is Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

I am currently writing Leading the Presence-Driven Church. 

The Presence Is More Important Than the Program (The Presence-Driven Church)

Angel, in the Detroit Institute of the Arts

Unless the program goes perfectly,

we're not going.

Moses? Exodus 30:15-16???

Anyone who wants a look at Real Church, as opposed to American Church, will do well to read A.W. Tozer.  

I'm slow-cooking in Tozer's The Root of the Righteous. Here is a quote from his chapter "The Presence More Important Than the Program."

"When we compare our present carefully programmed meetings with the New Testament we are reminded of the remark of a famous literary critic after he had read Alexander Pope’s translation of Homer’s Odyssey: He said -  “It is a beautiful poem, but it is not Homer.”

The fast-paced, highly spiced, entertaining [church] service of today may be a beautiful example of masterful programming— but it is not a Christian service. The two are leagues apart in almost every essential. About the only thing they have in common is the presence of a number of persons in one room. There the similarity ends and glaring dissimilarities begin. For one thing, the object of attention is not the same in the two meetings." (K910)

Pastors and worship teams - turn off your click tracks and behold, simmer, and slow-cook in the non-programmable beauty of the Lord's presence.

***
I'm now writing my book Leading the Presence-Driven Church.

My book on prayer is: Praying: Reflections on 40 Years of Solitary Conversations with God.

A Phenomenology of Spiritual Formation

For my October 2017 Spiritual Formation class at Payne Theological Seminary.  

SPIRITUAL FORMATION

My Method

a.    A phenomenology of spiritual formation.

b.    A description.

                                          i.    I am going to describe the process of spiritual formation and transformation as I have seen it, as a result of teaching and coaching overt 3000 pastors and Christian leaders over the past 36 years.

c.    ‘Phenomenology’ - “The discipline of phenomenology may be defined initially as the study of structures of experience, or consciousness. Literally, phenomenology is the study of “phenomena”: appearances of things, or things as they appear in our experience, or the ways we experience things, thus the meanings things have in our experience. Phenomenology studies conscious experience as experienced from the subjective or first person point of view. This field of philosophy is then to be distinguished from, and related to, the other main fields of philosophy: ontology (the study of being or what is), epistemology (the study of knowledge), logic (the study of valid reasoning), ethics (the study of right and wrong action), etc.” (“Phenomenology,” Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy)

What is spiritual formation?

Dallas Willard - “Spiritual formation can be understood as the process by which true Christlikeness is established in the very depths of our being.” (Willard)

§  “Spiritual formation” is “a term for those processes through which people are inwardly transformed in such a way that the personality and deeds of Jesus Christ naturally flow out from them when and wherever they are.” (Willard)

§  "When we talk about spiritual formation we are talking about framing a progression of life in which people come to actually do all things that Jesus taught. So we are obviously going for the heart. We are aiming for change of the inner person, where what we do originates." (Willard)

·        
Jeffrey Greenman - "Spiritual formation is our continuing response to the reality of God's grace shaping us into the likeness of Jesus Christ, through the work of the Holy Spirit, in the community of faith, for the sake of the world."
- Jeffrey Greenman, Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective, 24 

      

·         Henri Nouwen - "Spiritual formation, I have come to believe, is not about steps or stages on the way to perfection. It’s about the movements from the mind to the heart through prayer in its many forms that reunite us with God, each other, and our truest selves." (Nouwen, Spiritual Formation: Following the Movements of the Spirit, Kindle Locations 152-154) 

o   "Spiritual formation requires taking not only the inward journey to the heart, but also the outward journey from the heart to community and ministry. Christian spirituality is essentially communal. Spiritual formation is formation in community. One’s personal prayer life can never be understood if it is separated from community life. Prayer in the spiritual life leads to community, and community to prayer. In community we learn what it means to confess our weakness and to forgive each other. In community we discover our own woundedness, but also a place of healing. In community we learn true humility. Without community, we become individualistic and egocentric. Therefore, spiritual formation always includes formation to life in community." (Ib., Kindle Locations 309-315)

    

5 stages – a phenomenology of spiritual formation.

      1. The Need – recognition of how needy we are of personal, inner change.

2. The Gap – realization as a revelation of the holiness of Christ, and of the great gap between ourselves and Christ.

3. Recognition of the magnitude of the needed transformation. God wants to metamorph the human heart into Christlikeness. (Gal. 4:19; Rom. 12:1-2)

4. Only God can do this – realization that we cannot self-transform by our own striving and will power into Christlikeness.

5 . Therefore, consistently get into the presence of God. Abide in Christ. You cannot consistently dwell in Christ and remain unchanged.

What is “spirit?”

o    

o   “Spirit” Defined"

o    

o   Biblically and systematically, it is appropriate to identify the heart and the spirit of the human being and the will as roughly the same thing. (From Dallas Willard)

o   The spirit is that part of the human being that has the capacity of moving without being moved. (=”free will”]  

o   It is the depth of the human being where freedom really exists. It is that part of us that is self-determined. That's the heart.

o   That's why evil and good come out of the heart, it's because that's the part of us that is really us.

o   It's really ours. And spirit is of that intensely personal nature.

o    

God is spirit. Therefore God is wholly self-determined.

o   We are self-determined only in a very small way. 

o   This part of the human being--the spirit, the will, the heart--is the place where the work of spiritual formation has to be done.

o   Remember the words of Samuel: "Man looks on the outward appearance, but God looks on the heart."

o   Functionally the will is the executive center of the self.  [= choice-making; decision-making]

o   When it comes to life in God through the new birth, its task is then the re-formation of the whole self in co-operation with God.

o   Will is not exactly character, but is formed into character as it becomes habitual and automatic.

o   The human will exists in three conditions or dimensions.

Three aspects of the human will (From Dallas Willard)

o   The vital or impulsive will

§  .    “This is a willing that is outwardly directed and moved by and toward things that are simply attractive. You see this in a baby. A little baby very quickly begins to be attracted to things, to reach for them, and move in relationship to them. And that's all there really is to will in the baby.”

§  b.  This is: “I want to,” and “It pleases me.” E.g., “I want to eat ice cream, therefore I will eat ice cream.” (Especially Graeter's Ice Cream in Columbus!)

§  c.    You simply choose what you desire.

o   The reflective will

§  The reflective will is oriented toward what is good for the person as a whole, not merely to what is desired. And so we have the conflict that we all know too well, as human beings, between the good and the bad, and the good and the not so good, and the good and the better. This conflict goes on constantly in our lives…”

§  b.    Reflective will is the will oriented toward what is good for the person as a whole, not toward the merely desired.

§  c.    Instead of just doing what you want or desire, you choose for what is good. For Jesus-followers, you choose what God wants.

§  d.    This is the “WWJD” stage.

o   The embodied will

§  Embodied will – this is who you really are.

§  Now watch closely: ”Spiritual formation in Christ transforms your embodied will. It transforms your embodied will so that what comes out of you automatically are the words and deeds of Christ.” (Willard)

§  This is the point where we can stop thinking about our responses.

§  This is the point where we have the mind of Christ.

o   Willard says: “Christian spiritual formation is the process through which the embodied/reflective will takes on the character of Christ's will. It is the process through which (and you know Gal. 4:19) Christ is formed in you and me. Think of Paul's magnificent statement: "The life which I live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me." Not faith in, but the faith of. I have taken his faith into me. I am now being inwardly the person that Christ has called me to be, and this inward faith has now spread throughout my socially embodied self.”

o   Willard: “Spiritual formation in Christ would, then, ideally result in a person whose reflective will for good, fully informed and possessed by Christ, has settled into their body in its social context to such an extent that their natural responses were always to think and feel and do as Christ himself would. Their epidermal as well as their deliberate responses are then those of Christ.” [Cmp. Nouwen – that the truths of the mind would descend into one’s heart.] 

§  This reverses Romans 7:19. There, Paul writes:  "The things that I would not that I do, and the things that I would, that I do not."     

Experiencing Transformation by God's Spirit

Wilberforce, Ohio

It's Tuesday morning. I'm in Beaver Creek, Ohio, about to take the twenty-five minute drive though the rolling hills of southern Ohio to Wilberforce, and Payne Theological Seminary. This is my 7th, or 8th (can't remember!) year of teaching spiritual formation and transformation at Payne. What a great honor it is for me to do this. And how many  friends have I found during these years.

I'll teach Tues-Fri, 9-5. I feel certain that, as it always happens, the students and I will experience God's transforming Spirit upon us.

I will present my theory of how God changes the human heart, root it in Scripture, and illustrate it through the writings and prayer lives of Howard Thurman and Martin Luther King, Jr. I discovered Thurman in 1982. His quotes were included in A Guide to Prayer for Ministers and Other Servants, which I was using as a devotional guide (for two years!). Thurman is the Henri Nouwen of African-American spirituality.

In a course on swimming one would rightfully expect to get into the pool and experience the water. In a course on spiritual transformation one would expect to experience being transformed. Jeffrey Greenman and George Kalantzis write:

"The apostle Paul was supremely concerned that through the transforming power of the gospel, men and women would become "mature in Christ" (Col. 1:28). Maturity in Christ means being whole, complete and fully grown up. The goal of Paul's ministry was not that people would merely hear the gospel proclaimed, or understand it principally at an intellectual level or even become converts to a new social movement. His aim was that the proclaimed good news would be received and would enact its effective work at the deepest level of the human spirit, shaping the hearts and minds of people so that new life of Christ, given by the Holy Spirit, would so animate their character and conduct that they would truly become "like Christ." This goal was not reserved for a small spiritual elite but was intended for everyone. It was meant to mark individual lives and communal experience."

- Greenman and Kalantzis, eds., Life in the Spirit: Spiritual Formation in Theological Perspective, p. 9.

Bonhoeffer's 7 Principles for Unity in the Church

Green Lake, Wisconsin

Frank Thielman, in his commentary on Philippians, shares Dietrich Bonhoeffer's seven principles  for eradicating selfish ambition from Christian communities. (106).

Christians should…

1. Hold their tongues, refusing to speak uncharitably about a Christian brother;
2. Cultivate the humility that comes from understanding that they, like Paul, are the greatest of sinners and can only live in God’s sight by his grace;
3. Listen “long and patiently” so they will understand their fellow Christian’s need;
4. Refuse to consider their time and calling so valuable that they cannot be interrupted to help with unexpected needs, no matter how small or menial;
5. Bear the burden of their brothers and sisters in the Lord, both by preserving their freedom and by forgiving their sinful abuse of that freedom;
6. Declare God’s word to their fellow believers when they need to hear it;
7. Understand that Christian authority is characterized by service and does not call attention to the person who performs the service.

Premarital Counseling and Marriage as Covenant

In our community we had a "Wedding Chapel" where couples paid local pastors $75 and got an instant wedding. I, and some others, refused to do that. I won't officiate a wedding ceremony unless a couple agrees to meet with Linda and me at least six times for premarital counseling.

We only work with premarital couples who are part of our church family. This gives us more than enough to do. If they are with us, Linda and I love assisting them on the road to marriage.

We are passionate about helping premarital couples enter into a marital covenant with God that will last a lifetime. There aren't a lot of marriages like that, so we feel pretty intense about this. Our experience is that nearly all premarital couples desire a marriage that lasts a lifetime. In order to achieve this they need a lot of help, since it's likely that they lack parents who stayed together and modeled a healthy marital relationship for them. The lack of this creates problems for people who want to get married. In counseling we address this, along with many other things.

Linda and I love getting to know premarital couples! When we finally come to that moment where we're standing before God ,and the man and woman are expressing vows to each other, we can say: We know these two people. That's important to us.

In premarital counseling we have, for years, used the FOCCUS premarital inventory. Couples individually respond to statements like the examples below. The materials are sent in and, for a small fee, processed and returned to a Facilitator like myself. I get a packet of information that works like an MRI of the premarital couple's relationship. It's broken down into categories such as "Communication," "Financial Issues," "Family of Origin Issues," and "Extended Family Issues." In the premarital counseling sessions we work from the areas that have the least amount of agreement on the preferred answers.

Here are some sample statements from the actual FOCCUS inventory.

Here are some thoughts we have about learning about Marriage As Covenant (rather than "contract").

• THINK OF HAVING A LIFE PARTNER. Most couples we work with, when they think of marriage (rather than co-habiting), think of a life partner. But the idea of covenant may not be there, at least intentionally and reflectively. "Covenants" are forever; "contracts" can be negotiated and broken.
• DO THE FOCCUS PREMARITAL INVENTORY WITH A THIRD PARTY WHO CAN INTERPRET IT (GET EXCELLENT PREMARITAL COUNSELING). 
• The FOCCUS material asks covenantal questions. You don't have to be engaged to do this survey. Note: 10% of all who take it decide not to get married and end their relationship.
• FIND A COVENANT MARRIAGE AND TAKE THEM OUT TO DINNER. Do you know of a two persons who have been married many years, and selflessly and sacrificially love each other? Go out for dinner with them and ask them questions about their marriage. Treat them. They deserve it. Note: Linda and I were once hosting the Jewish novelist Chaim Potok for a series of presentations at Michigan State University. In a session with high school students a girl asked him, "Mr. Potok, I don't have any moral values. How can I get them?" Chaim answered: "Find a family that has moral values and hang around them." A lot of the stuff we have been taught has been caught.
• REJECT THE MYTH OF COMPATIBILITY. Understand, from the beginning, that no two people are compatible enough to weld together for life. So, you won't need to divorce on the basis of "incompatible differences." Expect them. Again, find a successful, long-term covenant marital couple. They've learned how to love in the midst of their differences.
• SAVE THE SEXUAL (INTERCOURSE) RELATIONSHIP UNTIL COVENANTALLY WELDED TOGETHER. This builds trust, and increases real love which is: loving the other for who they are in Christ and not for the sex they can give you. Contractual relationships are all about what I get; covenantal relationships are all about God first, and the other person second.
• READ GARY CHAPMAN'S BOOK. We really like Chapman's Things I Wish We'd Known Before We Got Married. Everyone should read it.
• READ LES AND LESLIE PARROTT'S BOOK Real Relationships. 
• READ THESE TWO BOOKS BY WALTER TROBISCH. Before I got married (41 years in August!) my pastor had me read these two marvelous books by Walter Trobisch - I Married You, and I Loved a Girl. Prepare to be ushered into another, beautiful, alternative noetic framework.
• READ MIKE MASON'S BOOK. We strongly suggest reading Mike Mason's famous The Mystery of Marriage. This is all about the nature of covenant relationship.
• WATCH "SLEEPLESS IN SEATTLE," ALONE. The Tom Hanks character knew his wife, inside and out. The Meg Ryan character longs to have a husband like this. And she hasn't even seen his face. Such is the quality of covenant relationship; viz., it grows in an ever-newness of love while the face and body sag and decline.