Our Search for Identity and Our Awesome Facebook Life

I took a picture of this plaque in Cleveland.

“On Facebook, people are more concerned with making it look like they’re living 

rather than actually living.”

Howard, Gardner; Katie Davis. The App Generation: How Today's Youth Navigate Identity, Intimacy, and Imagination In a Digital World (p. 63). Yale University Press. Kindle Edition. 

A.S.L.O.

The primary thing every follower of Jesus must do is: dwell in God’s presence. Resolutely, I will choose to abide in Christ. 

We see these concepts in both the First Testament and the Second Testament.

In the First Testament we have the idea of “the presence of God,” especially in the Temple. In the Second Testament we have the idea of “abiding in Christ,” as given by Jesus in John 14-16, and the “in Christ” status Paul writes about in his letters (my identity - I am the Lord's.).

I have an acronym I use to describe a Jesus-follower’s job description: 

A.S.L.O.

ABIDE

SATURATE

LISTEN

OBEY

ABIDE

·                     I will follow Jesus' final instructions to his disciples, given in John chapters 14-16. The results will be that...

·                     I am a branch, connected to Jesus the True Vine

·                     My life will be fruit-bearing

·                     I will experience his love

·                     I will experience his peace (not "peace" like our world gives)

·                     I will experience his joy

·                     With Christ in me I do the things that Jesus did

·                     I will not go up and down according to the circumstances of life

·                     I will not be a conference-dependent or book-dependent follower of Jesus

·                     I will live in expectation. Today, and this week, could contain a watershed moment. Anything good and amazing can happen to the Jesus-follower who lives attached to Jesus, who lives "in Christ."

SATURATE

·                     I will take The Book and read

·                     I will meditate on the biblical text

·                     I will slow-cook in the teriyaki sauce of God's thoughts and God's ways and God's promises

·                     I will shut my ears to our hyper-wordy world and attend to the deep words of Scripture

·                     I will fix my eyes, not on things seen, but on things unseen

·                     I will be illuminated by God's Spirit

·                     God's Spirit will escort my heart to its true home

LISTEN

·                     God has much to say to me this week

·                     Today, I have "ears to hear"

·                     I will be alert

·                     I will live with ears wide open

·                     When God speaks to me, I will write it down in my journal

·                     I will remember the words of the Lord, to me

·                     God will tell me that he loves me

·                     God will shepherd me. Jesus said that his sheep hear his voice. That's me.

·                     God will lead me in paths of righteousness, not for my glory, but for his sake

OBEY

·                     God will direct my paths

·                     God will make my paths straight

·                     The inner "GPS" ("God Positioning System") is turned on

·                     Where he leads me, I will follow

·                     I will experience life as an adventure

·                     In obedience to God, my life finds meaning and purpose

A.S.L.O.

This is my primary “job responsibility” of pastors and Christian leaders. Without this I will be irrelevant, inauthentic, and subject to irrational anxieties and fears.

Praying for Busy People: A Response to One of My Readers

Maumee Bay State Park, Ohio

One of my blog readers, E.M., sent me a response to my post "Praying Is Ontologically Antecedent to McPraying."

I have their permission to post it with my thoughts.

E.M. writes:

Dear John,

I haven't commented in a long time however I felt compelled to comment this time. First of all let me say I can appreciate what you are trying to say. I also appreciate that you do not discredit what you have termed "Mcprayer" -cute.

On the whole I think I can agree however I just felt the need to add a little tempering and maybe some of my hopefully complementary thoughts lest some of my friends lose hope altogether.

Just as a marriage goes to different seasons so does our relationship with God I think. 

For instance when a married couple has young children they are not going to have long periods of quiet time together. However they do need some and this is where perhaps many marriages fall apart is that they don't get any during this period. It may just be one date night together once a month or 20 minutes after the children have gone to bed. The couple has to adjust and learn to get the most value out of what little quiet time they have together and the rest of the time learn to be together with their children while doing their necessary tasks. 

I think the same would go for a full-time mother and wife's relationship with the Lord. To ask anymore of her would be to ask the impossible. She can be single-minded in how she cares for her family and worship the Lord has she raises her children to follow his ways. As her children grow up and her responsibilities change she can adjust her time of quiet devotion to both her husband and the Lord accordingly. 

I think you would probably agree but perhaps you don't...?

My other thought is this. Sometimes I actually find it more helpful to occupy my hands with a mindless tasks such as washing the dishes or taking a shower while praying. I actually find it easier to listen. I have heard similar testimony from others including the minister Mark Virkler who specializes in teaching people to hear God's voice. He emphasizes journaling as a method to facilitate listening. One benefit is it gives the hands and mind a focused occupation and therefore we are less likely to wander. 

In the end I still agree with you that some amount of solitude, quietness, and quality time are necessary to nurture and sustain any relationship especially our relationship with the Lord.

I'm open to any thoughts you have on what I have just said. Thank you for allowing me the opportunity to share.

-E

My thoughts:

Thank you E for sharing this with me. Here are some things I am thinking about this.

1. I agree with you that life brings certain events that make it more difficult to take extended prayer times with God. When one of our sons was in a medical emergency situation that lasted for months it was harder to find alone time with God. Linda and I were constantly in the hospital at our son's side. And of course we prayed a lot while we were there. 

2. In general Linda and I encourage parents to continue to carve out time together, without the kids. This will benefit the kids, since what they most need are a spiritually healthy mom and dad who love each other. Linda and I did this by having a regular Friday night "date," which we have never stopped. I think the same kind of thing can be done with God. I encourage busy people to begin by finding 5-10 minutes a day to get alone with God. If someone does this I believe God will meet them, and will help them break free from any busyness that is unneeded.

3. The antidote to spiritual burnout is time with God. I see pastors burning out who have taken little or no time with God. I see this with busy parents too. My calling is to help people find or recover or rediscover that "quiet place" with God.

4. I encourage "busy people" to step back and evaluate their busyness. Our world system does not promote solitude, and offers us continuous servings of more things to do and more things to buy, all in the name of "happiness." I think many people could find more one-on-one time with God (the kind of time Jesus took) if they looked at their "doing." I believe that, in a Christian's spiritual life, one's "doing" should come out of and be determined by one's "being." First meet with God. Then, do. 

5. Are you familiar with the spiritual classic The Practice of the Presence of God, by Brother Lawrence? In this book B. Lawrence prays while he washes dishes. That is good. But my understanding of this is that B. Lawrence lived in a monastery where there was a foundation of a lot of solitary praying that undergirded and fueled his praying while he was doing tasks. 

6. I am familiar with Mark Virkler. Many years ago we had him for a weekend at our church. I think journaling can, as you say, facilitate listening to God. I know it does for me!

Finally, you write - "In the end I still agree with you that some amount of solitude, quietness, and quality time are necessary to nurture and sustain any relationship especially our relationship with the Lord."

I think we are in basic agreement about this.

Thank you so much E for writing me. I hope these thoughts of mine make sense.

Blessings to you this day as you continue to draw close to Jesus,

J.P.

Leadership & the Danger of Unconscious Striving

Greencrest Manor, Battle Creek

Growth and maturity in pastoral leadership means:

1. Greater abiding

2. Less striving

It means:

1. Greater discerning

2. Less deciding

It means:

1. More God-pleasing

2. Less people-pleasing

The spiritual maturation process takes place in the presence of God. Constant abiding in God's presence provides protection for our souls. In His presence there is no burnout. As the God-connection is nurtured the inner fire is tended.

Ruth Haley Barton writes:

"Without the regular experience of being received and loved by God in solitude and silence, we are vulnerable to a kind of leadership that is driven by profound emptiness that we are seeking to fill through performance and achievement. This unconscious striving is very dangerous for us and for those around us; it will eventually burn us out (since there is no amount of achievement that will ultimately satisfy the emptiness of the human soul), and the people we work with will eventually notice that they are mere cogs in the wheel of our own ego-driven plans. (Barton, Strengthening the Soul of Your Leadership: Seeking God in the Crucible of Ministry, p. 126)

More Than a Conference; It's a Family

July 2016 HSRM Conference

Linda and I have been attending our annual summer Holy Spirit Renewal Ministries Conference since 1992. We'll be there again in 2016.

Every summer we spend a week together with as many as 500 people. Of all ages. There are singles and families and couples. We have focused ministries for children and youth. We have a a variety of excellent workshops. There are great speakers and teachers, all in a beautiful physical environment in central Wisconsin with a lot of time to play, relax, and ponder the great things of God's Kingdom.

The best thing for Linda and I is that through this yearly gathering we have met and made many lifelong friends from across American and beyond. It's not too early to think about becoming part of this beautiful, Jesus-loving tribe. It's more than a conference; it's a family.

This conference's uniqueness is that we spend 5 days together, with a schedule that is ideal for learning, growing spiritually, worshiping, meditating, and playing. 

Our next gathering is June 25 - July 1, 2016. For information and registration go here.

Our main speakers will be:

Robby Dawkins

Bob Hazlett

My Redeemer Lives - Dick & Rick Hoyt

Here's some inspiration for Labor Day. We showed this at Redeemer years ago. It still works!

Nourishment for the Hungry Soul

Greencrest Manor in Battle Creek

Linda and I are just outside Battle Creek at Greencrest Manor for the wedding of Kim Cooke and Josh Thomas. This is such a beautiful bed-and-breakfast place (Grant Hill was married here). 

I woke up this morning and walked around taking photos. I also brought my copy of Thomas Merton's Thoughts in Solitude. I read it long ago, in 1988. I'm doing a slow-cook re-read. Merton is a discerner, a deep-dweller who lingers in life tasting and savoring it. 

Merton understood spiritual realities and their importance. He writes:

"There is no greater disaster in the spiritual life than to be immersed in unreality, for life is maintained and nourished in us by our vital relationship with realities outside and above us. When our life feeds on unreality, it must starve. It must therefore die." (p. 17)

I see America as largely a nation of spiritually hungry, starving people who have mistaken material things for spiritual food. Acquisition of and investment in unrealities only leave people empty. We are the perpetually dissatisfied. 

For Merton the answer is to begin "by renouncing the illusory reality which created things acquire when they are seen only in their relation to our own selfish interests." (Ib.)

Tomorrow morning at Redeemer I'm preaching out of Revelation 11:15-19. This is about spiritual reality outside and above us, and its eventual interconnection with the earth and us. Verse 15 reads:

¹⁵ The seventh angel sounded his trumpet, 

and there were loud voices in heaven, which said:

“The kingdom of the world has become

    the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,

    and he will reign for ever and ever.”

"The heavenly voices shout out the turning point that the entire Bible has waited for - the arrival of the kingdom! Their song celebrates the reversal of the tragic earthly situation during the age of sin... Now that dichotomy [between the kingdom of earth and the kingdom of God] has ended, and the heavenly kingdom has replaced the earthly as the true reality." (Grant Osborne, Revelation) 

At this point the true nature of things will be clearly seen. Merton writes: "The "unreality" of material things is only relative to the greater reality of spiritual things." (Ib.) In other words, material things are created things; therefore their essence is discerned in and through their creators (either God, or persons). Think of the word 'inspiration' here; viz., 'spirit'... 'in'. 

Reality is fundamentally spiritual. This morning my soul feeds on this, and I am nourished.

Big Stick - The Mark Dantonio Era

This video is the sine qua non of inspiration.

Normal Christian Experience Includes a Conversational Relationship with God

Warren Dunes State Park, Lake Michigan

The story of Philip the evangelist provides a good example of how evangelism happened through the early church (Acts 21:8; ch. 6; ch. 8; Philip was one of "the 7," to be distinguished from Philip of "the 12" [Acts 1:13].) It happened the "Jesus way." Which was:

1. Hear from God.
2. Obey.

That's how Jesus did it. Peter did it that way, too. So did Philip the evangelist. By logical extension, so should we. Which means: no "evangelism program" is needed. No method or technique needed either. Just stay "in the Vine." Stay in relationship. Get your directions from God.

In one of our Sunday morning worship times I asked people to share an example of hearing directionally from God without knowing what the outcome would be. A number of testimonies were shared that went like this:

1. God told me to go ___________.
2. I went ___________. (Call this "obedience.")
3. God showed up. And it was a good, God-thing.

I hear from God regularly. Many of our people regularly hear from God. And, all of us can hear from God.

To acknowledge this seems almost like bragging on one hand, or like mental illness on the other hand. But I don't think it's either of those. It is, and ought to be, the normal Christian life. Hearing from God is, experientially, "Emmanuel - God with us." It is relationship with God; friendship with God.

While in Western culture this idea is strange, remember that concepts like "strange" and "normal" are functions of one's prethematic, mostly-non-reflected-on worldview. "Normal" Christian experience includes having a conversational relationship with God. This is called "prayer."

If you're looking for more on this I strongly recommend U. of Southern Caifornia Prof. of Philosophy Dallas Willard's Hearing God: Developing a Conversational Relationship with God.

I have already heard from God this morning. 

God has much that he wants to say to you today. 

Let the conversation begin.

Longing for Transcendence (The Presence-Driven Church)

The Grand Hotel, Mackinac Island, MI

Looks like Linda and I will be traveling to Trinidad and Tobago in October. I'll lead a conference for African Methodist Episcopal pastors. I'll be sharing my materials on spiritual formation, abiding in Christ, and "Leading the Presence-Driven Church." 

I'm doing some prepping for the event and reviewing some material, including James MacDonald's excellent book Vertical Church, and Alvin Plantinga's sumptuous spiritual and intellectual feast Knowledge and Christian Belief. 

I'm with MacDonald on much of what he says here. I am part of a Presence-Driven church. Not all churches are this way. MacDonald writes:

“Church leaders raised on rationalism lead ministries where the supernatural, the Vertical, is suppressed and where God Himself is at best an observer and certainly seldom, if ever, an obvious participant in church.” (MacDonald, Vertical Church: What Every Heart Longs for. What Every Church Can Be., Kindle Locations 533-535)

A pastor who suppresses God? Been there, done that, myself. It is the worst place to be, pastorally. Remember that Jesus shut down the Temple because the religious temple leaders "shut the door of the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. You yourselves do not enter, nor will you let those enter who are trying to." (Matthew 23:13)

This whole thing called "church" is really about God and Jesus and the Holy Spirit. Not just theoretically, but experientially. What people need is Emmanuel, God with us, existentially. 

The movement of God's Spirit is a felt, discernible thing. Pastors must nurture and cultivate God's presence. We must be very, very open to it. 

The Horizontal Church is the godless church; Vertical Church is the Presence-Driven Church. It's all about "entering in." The word is Christ in you, not as some epistemically distant object.

John Calvin, who is often inaccurately portrayed as being spiritually cold and aloof (don't mistake Calvinists for Calvin himself), had as his emblem a flaming heart with an outstretched hand. On it was the motto: Cor meum quasi immolatum tibi offero, Domine ("I give my flaming heart to you, Lord, eagerly and honestly.") Calvin had these words carved over the pulpit in Geneva where he preached. Alvin Plantinga writes:

Of the Holy Spirit, [Calvin] says that “persistently boiling away and burning up our vicious and inordinate desires, he enflames our hearts with the love of God and with zealous devotion.” The Institutes are throughout aimed at the practice of the Christian life (which essentially involves the affections), not at theological theory; the latter enters only in the service of the former. (Plantinga, Knowledge and Christian Belief, p. 72)

Jonathan Edwards wrote:

"There is a distinction to be made between a mere notional understanding, wherein the mind only beholds things in the exercise of a speculative faculty; and the sense of the heart, wherein the mind doesn’t only speculate and behold, but relishes and feels. That sort of knowledge, by which a man has a sensible perception of amiableness and loathsomeness, or of sweetness and nauseousness, is not just the same sort of knowledge with that, by which he knows what a triangle is, and what a square is. The one is mere speculative knowledge; the other sensible knowledge, in which more than the mere intellect is concerned; the heart is the proper subject of it, or the soul as a being that not only beholds, but has inclination, and is pleased or displeased." (Quoted in Ib., p. 73.)

There is a great longing in the human heart for something more. For something beyond us, that will complete us. We see this in the Psalms.

My soul yearns, even faints, for the courts of the Lord;

my heart and my flesh cry out for the living God.

Psalm 84:1

O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; 

my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you. 

Psalm 63: 1 

One thing have I desired of the Lord, that I will seek after; 

that I . . . behold the beauty of the Lord. 

Psalm 27: 4

As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. 

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. 

Ps. 42: 1-2

I open my mouth and pant, longing for your commands. 

Ps. 119: 131

Plantinga writes:

"This love for God isn’t like, say, an inclination to spend the afternoon organizing your stamp collection. It is longing, filled with desire and yearning; and it is physical as well as spiritual: “my body longs for you, my soul pants for you.” Although eros is broader than sexual love, it is analogous to the latter. There is a powerful desire for union with God, the oneness Christ refers to in John 17." (Ib., 75)

In The Weight of Glory C.S. Lewis wrote:

“We do not want merely to see beauty, though, God knows, even that is bounty enough. We want something else which can hardly be put into words — to be united with the beauty we see, to pass into it, to receive it into ourselves, to bathe in it, to become part of it.” (Lewis, The Weight of Glory, p. 8)

Presence-Driven leaders understand this and cultivate this, in themselves and in their people. Presence-Driven leaders have met Emmanuel, and introduce others to him. 

Knowing about God is not enough; knowing God is.