Where Was God When the Tornado Came?

Storm forming over our house

I'll be teaching two sessions of a workshop at our coming conference in Green Lake, Wisconsin, that I'm calling "Where Was God when the Tornado Came?" Here's the description:

WHERE WAS GOD WHEN THE TORNADO CAME? How do we respond when someone asks us a question like this?  In this workshop we will see how the reality of God as all-loving, all-powerful, and all-knowing is compatible with the existence of moral and natural evil, and why belief in such a God makes the best worldview-sense of moral and natural evil. Led by John Piippo.

I'll be bringing in materials from my "problem of evil" sections in my MCCC philosophy of religion classes. I've been studying this issue for decades, and am now putting it together in an hour and a half package.

I'm reading two new (to me) texts that are excellent:

- Nature Red in Tooth and Claw, by Michael J. Murray. Murray's book is on the problem of animal suffering, and brings in the issue of natural evil. (Note: Greg Boyd's warfare worldview denies the distinction between moral evil and natural evil, arguing that all evil is due to the free choices of created agents.)

- The Problem of Evil, by University of Notre Dame philosopher Peter Inwagen. Inwagen is brilliant and his writing is challenging.

I looking forward to presenting this.

When Your Mind Wanders During Prayer (Prayer Summer)

The Focus of Prayer Is Not Prayer

Monroe sunset

The focus of prayer is not prayer itself, but God himself.

James Houston says that "this is absolutely basic to prayer, but it is easy to forget in today's world." (Houston, The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God, 34) 

In this way prayer is like a sign. A sign is, ultimately, not about itself, but about something else; viz., that to which it points to.

Or, prayer is like a tool. Tools have specific purposes beyond themselves. This is important to know, especially for me since I inherited many of my father's tools but have no idea of what many of them are for. I've got a lot of tools sitting around, on display. This might look impressive, but tools are not meant to just be looked at. Like, "Look at all these tools lying here in my garage. Aren't they cool?"

We are not to pray simply because we can, or because it's the religious thing to do. Houston writes: "Prayer is our response to God's interest in us and his love for us. To pray is to become aware that God's Spirit lives within us. Through prayer, we explore a deeper and more intimate relationship with God." (Ib.)

Jeremiah 29:13 says, "You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart." In true prayer we find God. That is the point of the whole thing. It's the point of our life.

Prayer Summer - Praying with Undivided Attention

The Death of the American Church

Kites across the street from my house

(Thank you Dave N. for pointing me to the writings of Mike Breen.)

"If today’s church does not recapture the sacrificial spirit of the early church, it will lose its authenticity, forfeit the loyalty of millions, and be dismissed as an irrelevant social club with no meaning for the twentieth century."
- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In "The Obituary of the American Church" British church leader Mike Breen writes about three nails that are being hammered into our churches, signifying their demise. These nails are the original temptations Jesus faced: Appetite, Affirmation, and Ambition. Breen writes: 

"If our enemy gets his way, the American church could be taken out:

• A culture of CELEBRITY (affirmation)
• A culture of CONSUMERISM (appetite)
• A culture of COMPETITION (ambition)"

In the American church we have...

A CULTURE OF CELEBRITY

"The problem with many pastors is they make decisions, develop personas, and define success from the lens of what will make them famous (even if they don’t know it or see that they are doing this). So in American church culture, it’s pretty easy to become a celebrity: Grow a huge church. Now all in all, it’s not terribly difficult to grow to be a giant church if you have the right tools at your disposal...but that doesn’t mean the ends justify the means of getting there. For instance, though Jesus was a celebrity in his day, he was willing to say things that ran people off in droves. In fact, the book of Mark chronicles (from about the mid-point of the book on) how people left Jesus to where, at the end, virtually no one was left. No one wanted to be associated with him for fear of the consequences. That’s not something you see too often in American churches."

Celebrity-status-seeking pastors can:

• disengage community and isolate themselves
• this sets them up for moral failure
• make decisions that are numbers-driven and not Kingdom-driven
• give people a shallow understanding of the Gospel as opposed to a holistic one that leads people to discipleship
• put the good of their church (their personal Kingdom) over the good of God’s Kingdom

In the American church we have...

A CULTURE OF CONSUMERISM

"As pastors and church leaders, we do as best we can to provide as comfortable an experience as humanly possible, using every means at our disposal to attract people (and then keep them). So we tailor what we do around their wants and desires. That’s Marketing 101, right? The problem is at the end of the day, the only thing Jesus is counting is disciples. That’s it. He doesn’t seem to care too much about converts, attendance, budgets, or buildings. It’s about disciples. And by nature, disciples are producers, not consumers. Yet most of our churches are built around feeding consumers."

90% of your typical American church's time, energy, and resources are about attracting people. Breen writes: 

"Unfortunately, the means you use to attract people are usually the means you must use to keep them. In other words, if you use consumerism to attract people to your church, you will need to continue using consumer-oriented practices to keep them—or else they will find another church to meet their “needs.” But that consumer mentality is antithetical to the Gospel and to the call of discipleship."

In the American church we have...

A CULTURE OF COMPETITION

"There’s nothing wrong with being competitive, but competition has become warped and twisted within our culture. And at least in the church, we are competitive about the wrong things. Much of the American church finds itself competing with the church down the road. “Are we bigger than them? Do we have more influence than them? Do we have the best/biggest youth group in town? Do people like to get married in our church building? Do people like our church better than theirs?”"

Listen to the truth of this: "Ninety-six percent of church growth is due to transfer growth and not churches striking into the heart of the enemy’s territory. That’s not a win! That’s a staggering loss. Furthermore, for many pastors, we don’t think we’ve won until we’ve won and someone else has lost."

So if my church is "growing" because people have left your church to "join" mine, then we have both lost, and we're caught up in some hamster-wheel numbers game. 

So what are we to do?

• Sacrifice, which is the cure for Celebrity, Consumerism, and Competition.
• Lay down what builds you up and give to others instead.
• Look form anonymity rather than celebrity.
• Build a culture of producers rather than of consumers. I.e., make disciples, since real disciples produce rather than consume.
• Fight the real enemy instead of competing against one another.
• Sacrifice what "I" and "we" want for the glory of God and the advancement of his Kingdom, regardless of our advancement or desires. 

Breen concludes:

"Clearly, this is what Paul was getting after in Philippians 2:6-11 when describing the attitude of Jesus as taking on the attitude of a servant, willing to sacrifice all acclaim and equality with God. It was a willingness to set aside and sacrifice celebrity, consumerism, and competition at the altar of the incarnation."

Prayerlessness is Sleeping With the Enemy

The incredible "Carmine's" restaurant, Manhattan, NYC

James Houston's The Transforming Power of Prayer: Deepening Your Friendship with God. It's a beautiful, gentle, challenging book. Houston asks, Why do so few Christians pray?

Over one hundred years ago James Ryle said: "I have come to the conclusion that the vast majority of professing Christians do not pray at all." (In Houston, 16) Houston suggests that  Ryle "would say the same thing of the church in the West today." (Ib.)

I know from teaching over 1500 seminary students (Master's and Doctoral) that most Western pastors do not have much of a prayer life. 80% don't; that's my estimate. So when Houston (himself a seminary professor) writes that "one of the most prayerless spheres can be a seminary or even a church," I know he is correct. Being assigned to actually pray at a theological seminary is mostly unheard of (except for, e.g., the students of Dietrich Bonhoeffer; and except for Payne Theological Seminary and Faith Bible Seminary and a few other places).

Following Dallas Willard, I define "prayer" as talking with God about what we are doing together. Houston calls prayer "keeping company with God." If these definitions are accurate, then one who says they believe in prayer or desire to pray but "cannot find time to pray" is in denial. If to pray is to meet with and keep company with an all-knowing, all-powerful, all-loving Being who is responsible for all creation, to include you, and who came to rescue you out of your depravity, then who could, reasonably, "not find time" to pray? If the President of the United States called, right now, and asked "Can I have an hour of your time?", would we be too busy for this? How much more so it should be with the Living God.

Prayerlessness indicates disbelief. Houston writes:

"To live without prayer is ultimately to disbelieve in God and to lose the most important human values, such as faith, hope and love. Living without prayer is the result of going to bed with all the attitudes of a modern secular society." (15)

Prayerlessness is sleeping with the enemy. Prayerlessness renders us ineffective in the things that matter most. To be "too busy to pray" is to remain spiritually asleep. It is to choose to be in a raging battle without the omniscient, omnipotent, omnibenevolent presence and resources of our Leader.

I don't think writing stuff like this motivates people to keep company with God and begin to daily consult with the Captain of All Things. Laying on guilt won't lift a person out of a prayerless groove. Prayerless people need a revelation from God himself. Something like an inner brokenness experience, such as I had, and which caused my whole life turned around in 1977. I've been meeting with God consistently ever since.

I have seen this happen to others. It can happen to you. God desires it to happen in you.

Prayer Summer How to Hear God's Voice

True Prayer Breeds Compassion for Others (Prayer Summer)

Sterling State Park - Monroe, Michigan

I have hated other Christians, even while being as a Jesus-follower. The problem with this is, at the point of my hatred, I am not following Jesus. To worship Jesus as Lord on Sunday morning and hate 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 a hate-filled heart is a Spirit-transformed, Jesus-shaped heart. Personally, 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 prayer breeds compassion. And togetherness.

In his book Life Together 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." (86)

Pray for me, and I'll pray for you
Pray that we will keep the common ground
Won't you pray for me and I'll pray for you
And one day love will bring us back around
Again
- Michael W. Smith ("Pray for Me")

Prayer Summer Conferencing with God about The Mission

Prayer Summer Begins Today

I'm sitting on our back deck on this beautiful summer morning. I just left our family room where Linda had been reading sections of her spiritual journal from summer 1992 to me. Linda is an excellent writer and recorder of her Jesus-journey. It was good to hear her sharing these things. We talked about this. And now I'm here, sitting in God's beautiful creation overlooking our back yard, typing.

Linda and I talked this morning about spiritual things. Some of these things were just for us, not to be shared with anyone else. Because Linda and I are married, and married people take much time to talk together. At least that's how it should be, right?

I am excited because Prayer Summer is beginning today! 200+ people are joining me in this. From all around our nation. If this includes you, then I have some things to share with you.

You and I, as Jesus-followers, are "church." We are Christ's "bride." Jesus is our "groom." A bride talks with the groom, often. At least this is how it should be. Because married people talk with each other..., a lot. "I ma my Beloved's and He is mine."

We have a Groom who longs to meet and communicate with us. My summer challenge to you is: do this. Meet with God, one-on-one, just you and God. Meet 30-60 minutes a day, 5 days a week. Of course you can meet more than that.

During this time, pray. Talk with God about what you and he are doing together. Listen to God speak to you. Write these things down in your spiritual journal. A spiritual journal is a record of the voice and activity of God in your life.

This is not some law-like, legalistic thing I am challenging you to do. It is all about relationship. With God. Lovers always meet with their Beloved. You don't have to make a law requiring that.

Why not stop, right now, and tell your Lord something like this: "Jesus, I begin today in your presence. Teach me to pray. I want to hear your voice. I want to deepen the level of intimacy I have with you. I am here to meet with you, now."

I bless you now with a greater abiding prayer life in Christ.

Let the conversation begin!

***

Prayer Summer begins June 1. 

• I'm challenging you to three months of praying, 30-60 minutes a day, 5 days a week, from June through August.
• You'll be on my e-mail list. I'll be sending Prayer Summer people things I am writing about prayer, plus video clips of myself teaching about prayer and encouraging a life of prayer.
• Prayer Summer Kickoff: Sunday night, June 9, 6 PM. Location: Toledo Vineyard. If you cannot make this event the audio will be online. Worship led by the Vineyard Worship Team. Then, I will give a challenge and call to prayer.
• I'd like to hear testimonies that come out of a life of praying. Prayer Summer people can submit testimonies which I may choose to post on my website (with your permission). 
• God's goal for me: mobilize more Jesus-followers into a life of actual praying.

If you want to be part of Prayer Summer and the Prayer Movement send me an e-mail and I'll add you to the group. 

johnpiippo@msn.com

Cost: $0.

Investment: deeper relationship with God, individually and corporately.

Prayer is: talking with God about what you and he are doing together. Prayer is: communication within The Relationship. Prayer is: conversation with God. Let the Great Conversation begin!