Harar Quixotic

Oratory of the heart

2010-03-11T16:05:00.001-05:00

Nouwen cites a quote by Brother Lawrence that was familiar to me. In fact I have oft quoted it.

It is not necessary for being with God to be always at church. We may make an oratory of our heart wherein to retire from time to time to converse with Him in meekness, humility, and love. Every one is capable of such familiar conversation with God, some more, some less. He knows what we can do. Let us begin then (Genesee Diary 174).

Last January we spent our residency at Malvern retreat center near Philadelphia that had these great rooms called oratories. They were a beautiful place to pray. When I first read this quote, the only reference I had for the word oratory was a speech. Reading it again, with the experience of the oratories at the retreat center, I felt my heart enlarge. There, inside my heart was a place where I could meet with God, all day.

I find that this kind of prayer is aided by a habit of prayer throughout the day. I use the Liturgy of the Hours to offer a rhythm to my day, at least on the good days. This week I have been experimenting with using the Jesus Prayer as a breath prayer, “Lord Jesus Christ, have mercy on me.” It feels like the space in my soul expands with each breath.

From Illusion to prayer

2010-03-11T12:54:00.002-05:00

In his Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen relates the story of a man who was a prisoner of war and was tortured.

“He was a very simple, down-to-earth man with little political or ideological sophistication. But no pressure was able to force him to any kind of confession. John Eudes explained this by pointing to the man’s sense of identity. No self-doubt, no insecurities, no false guilt feelings that could be exploited by his enemies” (181).

In Reaching Out, Nouwen talks about the illusion of immortality leading to sentimentality or violence. I can’t identify places in my life or the life of my community where this particular illusion comes in play. I identify with the kinds of illusions that the prisoner of war lacked. I struggle with illusions as to who I am, and where I fit. At my core I doubt God’s ability to use me, in spite of myself. I fall for the lies that my wounds and the enemy would tell me. This is delusion. My community struggles with illusions of scarcity, and of lack of worth.

It is comforting, Nouwen’s assertion, that prayer dispels delusion. He says that prayer encompasses the conscious and unconscious self. He comingles his psychology with his spirituality here. The wounds hidden in the unconscious self can be healed in prayer, the illusions dealt with.

Hospitality of a mentor

2010-02-27T15:12:00.002-05:00

Reflecting on hospitality, I recall the year I spent with Darren Daugherty at Summit Church in St. Paul between resigning my first position and returning to school. I asked him if he would mentor me. He told me that he didn’t feel ready to mentor someone but we began to meet weekly anyway. I dove into helping him with children’s ministry events on Sundays and Wednesdays. I started working four 10-hour days so that I could have Wednesdays free. Darren would take me out just about every Wednesday for lunch and listen as I ranted about my new convictions about ministering to families. Darren was a pioneer in family ministries and I had learned a lot of my convictions from him, yet he patiently listened as I reiterated things that he said. That year he created a space where I could test my convictions and grow my philosophy of ministry. I am struck by his patience during that time. Truly, I think he was more of a mentor than he realized.

Nouwen on pain

2010-02-25T23:53:00.001-05:00

The experience of God's presence is not void of pain. But the pain is so deep that you do not want to miss it since it is in this pain that the joy of God's presence can be tasted.

- Genesee Diary Sept 19

munching - the joys of communion

2010-02-25T16:15:00.002-05:00

I was telling my Spiritual Director about my love for Communion one day. She responded in a very affirming way. “It is a special grace,” she said, “that you receive so much meaning from communion. Embrace that.”

Nouwen has such deep love for the Eucharist, even from childhood. I love that. The way he talks about it paints an Icon in my mind, like the Rublev Trinity. I am invited to the table where God is engaged in mutual adoration. I am invited into the circle. The inverse perspective folds me into the image; I am there, in the with-God life. It is plain to see why Nouwen would want to share the experience across denominational bounds.

When I was at the first residence for class, I loved taking communion every day. Rob Rife was like a picture of my own desire to devour the elements in their full meaning. I would watch him literally munch, with his great jaw working, the body of Christ. I always want seconds.

Like Nouwen, my love for communion with God and with God’s family is strong. I too want to commune with other traditions. Some of my most meaningful times have been celebrated with Episcopalians. I appreciate the hospitality they show in open communion inviting even a Pentecostal like me into the heights of liturgy.

The treasure chest of pain

2010-02-25T15:41:00.000-05:00

I met with my Spiritual Director today, and I told her the story of my time in solitude. I told her that I started spending about an hour with Rublev's Trinity, then attempting some centering. She perceptively called me out.

"Why do you start your time with Icons when you have an elephant in the room to deal with." She recognized that I had a boiling cauldron of emotions from the less than stellar showing at our missions convention. I said that I had been wrestling with God about my fruitfulness. She pushed back, "How can you say that you were wrestling with anybody?" She saw that I was reluctant to really go there in my prayer. I poked at it, gazed into the pit, but I didn't descend there to experience the feelings.

She told me that was a shame, since that is where God was waiting for me. Her advice, don't waste your time with icons when you have a treasure to explore in prayer.

"Pain as a treasure chest, that's nice," I said, but that is where God can touch and heal those feelings, and embrace the child of God within me.

Aloneness

2010-02-20T01:18:00.001-05:00

In Joseph Conrad’s story The Secret Sharer, a new ship captain tells how he took on board and concealed a murderer. The man, a mate on another ship, had swum to escape, and the captain found him, naked, clinging to the rope ladder. The captain was so affected by the picture of this man dressed in his pajamas that he came to think of him as his double. He identified so closely with him, that he couldn’t give him up and became distracted by concealing him until he could put him ashore. When he finally parted with this false self, he felt his focus return.

Already the ship was drawing ahead. And I was alone with her. Nothing! no one in the world should stand now between us, throwing a shadow on the way of silent knowledge and mute affection, the perfect communion of a seaman with his first command.

These words forged a connection in my mind with what Nouwen has been saying to me about solitude. We live a disjointed life, trying to protect our false self. All the while we are called to solitude. My friend Jerrell said, “Recently, I’ve come to discover that solitude isn’t always a byproduct of isolation, but aloneness.” We come face to face with who we are apart from the perceptions of others and the “scaffolding” we erect to prop up our false selves in the midst of solitude. When we find ourselves truly alone, we can, with the captain, enjoy perfect communion.

Resistance and coming to terms with myself

2010-02-19T14:59:00.000-05:00

I have always been pretty introspective. Yet I have been surprised the last year how reluctant I have been to look into myself. My spiritual journey has asked that I dredge up the wounds of the past and expose them to the healing touch of Christ. Times of silence and solitude bring my fears, motives, and desires into focus. With difficulty I recognize that I have a hard time trusting God to make things grow. How much can I really affect my church people, my family, my wife, my own wholeness? How can I just let go of my illusion of control and let God do God’s thing.

All of these things take an active introspection, not navel gazing, but self-discovery and assessment. It is the answer to the Psalmist’s cry: search me (Psalm 139:23-24)! Am I willing to know myself? Am I willing to let the Spirit do the work? It is clear to me that this is necessary to my growth. Why do I resist? Perhaps it is time to spend more time in solitude and come face to face with the nature of myself.

Trust in emptiness

2010-02-19T14:29:00.000-05:00

This week I can greatly identify with Nouwen’s assertion that solitude is not immediately satisfying. My experiences with solitude Monday initiated a week of wrestling with myself.

Yesterday I went with my friend Rich to a retreat center in Dewitt. He has been leading a group of us in exploring the implications of centering prayer for ministry the last few months. We get together once a month for several hours, talking, reading the Cloud of Unknowing, and spending about an hour in silent centering prayer.

I was looking forward to this time, hoping that the time with God would resolve the feelings from Monday. There were moments of connection when I felt the presence, but, by and large, there was nothing. Here lies the tension. I have to trust that God is in fact doing something in that time, even when I don’t see it. I learn from the tension something about fruitfulness, the center of my struggle, as well. Even when I am not feeling like I am bearing fruit, that my six years of preaching and living example aren’t making a difference in my present context, I can still trust that God is still moving, that God’s vital sap is producing the fruit.

Doing battle with myself

2010-02-17T00:13:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I descended the steps to my basement office to do battle with demons. I did not know when I entered into undistracted solitude that I would be coming to grips with the darkness within me, though I knew no such endeavor is ever safe. The time since my experience has been avoiding solitude and silence, unwilling to engage the unfinished business I left in the basement of my heart.

I love solitude. Often it is a place for me to embrace and be embraced by Mystery. I touch eternity in those moments. This time, however, the Spirit of Christ was content to prod me, and poke at some uncomfortable places. In fact, I would call it a wrestling between us.

Nouwen explores the right and privilege of each of God’s children to intimacy, fecundity and ecstasy. In solitude it is Nouwen’s discussion of fecundity, fruitfulness that haunts and harasses me. God and I have this push and pull about what is my responsibility in bearing fruit and what is God’s.

The unspoken question burns within me, “If I have this right and privilege to bear fruit then where is it?” We have just completed our sixth missions convention as pastors at Sebewaing Assembly, setting a near record low for attendance this Sunday. Don’t people get that Elaine and I care deeply about missions? We have had a monthly emphasis and an annual convention for six years? I am frustrated and angry that they don’t seem to care. My mind rushes around in the solitude of my sacred space to other frustrations, they come boiling to the surface. “Why don’t they care about reaching the lost? Or about their own intimacy with Christ?”

The anger rises up with in me, and Nouwen’s words return, “He is not asking us to produce a lot so we can feel good about ourselves. He is asking us to be fruitful. And we don't make fruit. We receive fruit as a gift and say, ‘That is very beautiful.’ We don't say, ‘I always thought it would look exactly like this.’ What we don't make, we cannot predict or define.”

Restless I climb the stairs and pace the sanctuary.

“Ok then God, if you bring the fruit what is my job?”

Do what you know to do, be obedient.

My soul breaks in to angry tears. I think about the mess in my life. I am afraid to push the relationship and make the visits I know I ought to do. I am fearful, and afraid that my fear will end all the good things I resolved to do. I think of the mess in our house and how it keeps us from offering hospitality, cramps us and stresses me. I pound my fist on the piano lid in anger.

“God help me obey!”

Today I heard Henri’s words and they hit hard,

Anger in particular seems close to a professional vice in the contemporary ministry. Pastors are angry at their leaders for not leading and at their followers for not following. They are angry at those who do not come to church and angry at those who come for coming without enthusiasm. They are angry at their families, who make them feel guilty and angry at themselves for not being who they want to be. This is not an open blatant, roaring anger, but a hidden behind the smooth word, the smiling face and the polite handshake. It is a frozen anger, an anger which settles into a bitter resentment and slowly paralyzes a generous heart. If there is anything that makes the ministry look grim and dull, it is this dark, insidious anger in the servants of Christ (The Way of the Heart 23,24).

Solitude, he says, is the place that will eventually cure our hearts of this anger and greed, freeing us to be whole and holy. For my part I know I have unfinished business with God in my place apart. I left praying a Taizé song,

Stay with us O Lord Jesus Christ,
Night will soon fall.
Then stay with us O Lord Jesus Christ,
Light in our darkness.

Person-hood

2010-02-10T18:13:00.001-05:00

Nouwen suggests that a healthy soul will have a hidden place. Solitude, he says, is the place that hiddenness is cultivated and hospitality is the space given to others to have a hidden part of themselves.

He cautions against a too facile openness. This seems difficult to my mind. How can this closedness foster community? Perhaps an easy openness belies a shallow unexamined soul. In solitude, in that hidden center, we find God and experience God in us. We deepen the well within us. We find who we were created to be - our solitary uniqueness that we offer in intimacy to God. Then we are free to share what we can with others. From that well, we can offer the stores of our person-hood to those with whom we are forming communion. Yet there will remain much that cannot be verbalized, and more yet that the discipline of Silence bids us to keep cherished and within.

This idea of recognizing the person-hood of another is powerful to me. As Nouwen rightly points out, we can treat others as though they only existed in the periphery of a world at which we are the center. They exist only to serve, love, annoy and hurt us. When we view them this way they are not persons but accessories of our selfish lives.

I have found that in contemplating the otherness of people I only grow in love for them. I gaze at my wife and realize that she has a personality, hopes, dreams, and wounds of her own. She loves me of her own unique will. And my heart melts. I look at my children and see their unique gifts, their daily discoveries, their vivid imaginations and creativity. They become real to me. And my heart melts. They are no longer objects of frustration, responsibility and affection, but they are persons, souls, and children of God. God and I love them together.

Even in thinking about people who rub me the wrong way, people who have injured me, as I recognize that they are real persons in their own right, my heart melts toward them.

Nouwen suggests that never will such contemplation result in hatred. Always it will increase love. Our solitude gives rise to this contemplation, and we recognize and honor the unique solitary hiddeness of the people around us.

Loneliness

2010-02-10T17:48:00.000-05:00

I lay awake with a sense of malaise. Perhaps it is the feeling that there is much I have left undone, and battles left unfought. Perhaps it is the unknowing, will I pass or will I fail? Will I prevail or fall? I am uncomfortable with who I am. In any case the result is the same, loneliness borne of desolation.

Saturday night was such a night. I felt I just needed my wife to hold me. Her touch and embrace ironically converted my loneliness to solitude.

Monday, I again felt the sting of loneliness. This time it resolved in solidarity with other solitary people around the world. I found myself praying and resting in God.

From the center

2010-02-09T16:40:00.001-05:00

I began to pray a centering prayer in the solitude of my basement office, literally warmed by candlelight. I could see out the small window, near the ceiling, the brooding gray sky, snow flakes falling and wind a howl. There is God, hidden behind the cloud of unknowing. I hurl my love at the cloud, focusing all my love on the otherness that is the Divine Mystery.

My meditation turns to Haiti, and the thousands and millions of solitary souls hurting there. Faintly, carried on the breeze of the Spirit a song wafts up from my heart. It grows in strength and I begin to sing, “Ubi Caritas…” Live in charity, God will dwell with you. I play and sing for a time with my guitar and then I take my prayer walking around the sanctuary.

Our church is in the middle of our annual missions convention and hung on the walls are posters of various mission fields. As I pass by the images on the poster for Latin America and the Caribbean, I place my hand to the cheek of a woman who could very well be from Haiti. Love wells up wells up within me as I realize again the reality of her personhood. She is unique, not simply an image on the periphery of my life, but a real child of God, uniquely and fully loved by God.

Strange Dream of Nouwen

2010-02-06T00:24:00.001-05:00

In his Genesee Diary, Henri Nouwen records a dream about Thomas Merton that he found significant. I had a dream last night that is perhaps insignificant, about Henri Nouwen.

It seems we (fellow students and I) were at a campground for one of our yearly residencies for our Masters program. Henri was our teacher. The dream opens in the cafeteria where I was having a conversation over lunch with my former youth pastor, Nancy. She has her PhD and has been teaching at the university level. She apparently was teaching for Spring Arbor, as she was at our residency. She was challenging me about the rigor of our program. It seemed that my thoughts in our discussion were unenlightened because I hadn't been around academia at one of the top schools. She seemed to think I was more cut out for Yale and was disappointed that I was in this program. I defended my decision telling the story about how and why I came to the Masters in Spiritual Formation and Leadership. I touted some lofty goal that SAU had for becoming a top tier regional center for learning. She just gave me this quizzical look.

Then I went back to my makeshift dorm room to change and get ready for Henri's talk. I had a hard time picking out clothes, and I knew I was going to be late. In addition this particular night Henri wasn't going to be speaking in our regular auditorium, but rather in a big top with leather boardroom chairs. The whole town had been invited. I made my way past lines of people getting being fed an extravagant dinner, which I gathered was free to all the people coming in to hear Henri's talk.

I made it into the big top while it was still relatively empty and the crews were setting up the video cameras and testing out their projection system. I was sitting with my 7 year old daughter and a male friend of hers. That is, we were separated from each other by a video camera on a tripod. I wasn't comfortable with this arrangement, but I couldn't get them any closer.

At this point things get strange. We are suddenly in a van rather than leather chairs. It is like we are in the front row of a drive in theater. The van's engine starts to sputter so I give it some gas, and it lurches forward, the accelerator stuck (though it didn't seem to be a Toyota). By the time I regained control we were on a busy road heading away from the big top. I made my way back, barely able to control the van or get it to break. We made it back to park in a large field where the town people had parked. The van got stuck and wouldn't go any farther, so I stripped it down to its frame and drove it as a go-cart up to the big top.

Back inside we could only find seats behind a wall, removed from the action, only able to watch the service on the monitors. Between trying to keep the kids engaged, and being removed from the teaching, I didn't hear a word Henri said. Eventually I made my way around to the main area, the service was closing with a prayer time. People were getting up to leave and I could only catch glimpses of Henri gesturing with his massive hands as he talked to people in the isles.

Perhaps my dream indicates a danger to miss the substance of what Henri Nouwen has to say, the Christ he desires to present, in the midst of the activity surrounding him. Studying him so long after his death does seem to have some of the disadvantage of watching from afar. In any case, Lord, make me attuned to what you are saying to me through this dream and through the life and work of Henri Nouwen. Amen.

God tastes like espresso!

2010-01-28T19:04:00.003-05:00

Recently I was on a retreat and Fr. Bernie, who was leading it, challenged us to imagine what God tastes like. I was surprised to find that God tastes like espresso. I am still thinking through the implications of this.

The flavor profile I look for in a shot of espresso is one that rumbles and grabs my tongue. It has a boldness and a clean finish with a fine aftertaste. It seems I want that particular profile because it reminds me of how I experience God. I find I look for similar qualities in music, jazz and blues that digs in with visceral emotion, art deco portraiture that is heroic and lush, Greek food... the list goes on.

What word can I use to describe this experience? Dare I say it?
Erotic.

Hence one of my favorite poems:

Batter my heart, three-person'd God, for you
As yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend;
That I may rise and stand, o'erthrow me, and bend
Your force to break, blow, burn, and make me new.
I, like an usurp'd town to'another due,
Labor to'admit you, but oh, to no end;
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend,
But is captiv'd, and proves weak or untrue.
Yet dearly'I love you, and would be lov'd fain,
But am betroth'd unto your enemy;
Divorce me,'untie or break that knot again,
Take me to you, imprison me, for I,
Except you'enthrall me, never shall be free,
Nor ever chaste, except you ravish me.

—John Donne

The Spirituality of Coffee

2010-01-27T19:40:00.000-05:00

As proof that there are other people crazy about God and espresso, I submit for your consideration Billy Kangas. He has created a liturgy for making a cappuccino that I can't wait to use in practice! What an awesome way to find God in everyday life.

New Domain Name

2010-01-25T22:26:00.001-05:00

The Lord, The Blues and the Art of Being Smooth is now Harar Quixotic! Update your bookmarks to www.hararquixotic.com.

Resting

2010-01-25T16:55:00.000-05:00

As I was reflecting on the structures and systems of my church, and where I could begin implementing strategy, I leaned back in my chair and heaved a sigh. Mindy Caliguire caught my emotion and stooped to talk to me. I explained that I served a small church that had no real systems in place with which to contend. I went on to relate how we’ve tried implementing classes and other creative forums to use for spiritual formation but have seen few people come out to them. I know it means continuing to talk about vision, but, I told her, I have been preaching this stuff for six years now. When will it take hold?

I could hear in her response that as she was listening to me, she was also listening to the Spirit. With prophetic force she commanded me to, “Rest.” Then she exempted me from the rest of the discussion about strategy!

This isn’t the first time recently that God has been speaking to me of rest. I spent five days in silent retreat at St. Gregory’s Abby in October. While there I had a powerful emotional response to Psalm 6:2. “Give me strength, I am completely exhausted.” I was surprised then because I didn’t realize that I was exhausted, yet I sobbed in sympathy to this word.

I find this ironic, and am struggling to understand what God is saying to me. Often I consider myself lazy! Why would I need to rest? I find myself tired often and I do sleep and nap, whenever I get the chance!

I get my class work done, and Sunday’s preparations never fail to come together by God’s grace. There is certainly a lot to do, and our finances are so tight I can’t even think about them, leaving them in the hands of God, my wife, and the back of my mind. Life is stressful to be sure, and my body doesn’t handle the stress well. Yet, is that an excuse for merely getting by?

What resting is not

I have long wrestled with my own responsibility for the spiritual formation of those under my care. That war has been abating over the last few years as I recognize more and more God’s roll, yet in this command to rest the feeling rears again. Can I really be expected to cease all striving? Don’t I already lead a life of indolence?

First I must come to terms with what rest is not. Rest is not sitting in front of my computer all day listlessly going from one website to game and back again from sheer boredom. Rest is not hiding from the world or the fears that plague me. Rest is not giving up. Those are the things that I see in my life and are excuses for me to deny myself real rest. The lie is that I don’t deserve rest because I am lazy.

Resting in the disciplines

Rest is discipline. God offers me God’s own Sabbath rest for God’s own sake. I don’t rest because I deserve rest, but because it honors God and is at its core the basis of my relationship with God.

Rest is trust. The question remains, do I trust God enough to cease striving? Do I trust that God will come through and bring the Kingdom to bear, even using me, without my striving? This kind of rest speaks to me of fitness. I long for my body to be fit and energetic. To get there, I will need to rest in the disciplines. I need to do what I know and love to do to be close to God and allow the Spirit to build me into what I need to be. This is uprooting the deep seeded need to be effective, important and great (I am reminded again here of Nouwen’s reflections on leadership in his work, In The Name Of Jesus.)

Spiritual Direction as a model

In light of all this, what is my response? What will I do in my little church to trust God with my people and their spiritual development? After again committing to personally resting in the disciplines, I must move the church to rest in the disciplines as well. We turn the flywheel by continually placing ourselves and our congregation before the grace of God to change us.

Mindy suggested my first congregational discipline to exercise is prayer. She encouraged me to put together a prayer team. Kim Butts helped me think through what that would look like. She suggested three concentric circles. In the inner circle I would have people who are intimate, like my cohort, who could pray for things of a confidential nature. Then from the congregation I need to select a close team that I will keep up to date with prayer requests, answers to prayer and scriptures to pray. She stressed that I must do this even more for them and their privilege to pray for their pastor than for me and my own needs. The final circle embraces everyone, as I give them the opportunity to see into our lives and pray.

Another important concept that has been reinforced time and again is the roll of Spiritual Direction. I see the process as useful as I talk to people in my church. I need to visit and explore the stories of the people in my church, listening to them and the Spirit at the same time. I need to become a covert spiritual director for my people, helping them see where God is already leading them.

Organizationally spiritual direction is helpful as well. My leadership philosophy has long been to stand back and get to know the group before leading in some arbitrary new direction. I recognize the spiritual direction process in the way that over the last six years we have listened to the church learning where God has gifted them and where God meets them.

Inner Healing part 3

2010-01-12T21:37:00.003-05:00

The following is from a guided meditation into inner healing. It takes place in my imagination and goes where I am surprised. I thought I would have to work on my feelings about the church in Faribault that I had to work on earlier, but see where Jesus took me...

I walk to the creek side and sit on the large stones that form its bank. My back is to my Grandparent’s farmhouse and barn. Jesus comes and sits with me. I feel his body, his arm against my shoulder. He laughs and I push him.

I tell him that I feel he has shown me something at the core of me that I feel like an annoyance to others. I tell him that the members of my cohort have affirmed that I am not, that it is a lie. They asked me where that idea came from. I don’t know. I ask Jesus to Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. (Psalm 139:23-24).

He asks me to come with him. We walk down along the creek, back toward the copse of trees behind the pastureland. We lay our backs on a blanket there and look into the sky. His arm his hooked through mine. Then he shows me the summer we were there as kids, riding bikes around the track we had made. The picnic we had with our parents at the giant spool. I feel safe and secure there. I turn to him and ask, “when did I first feel like an annoyance? Was I this young?”

I remember the year before when we first moved to Faribault and the bully that slammed my head into the wall daily. I remembered the next spring when I started fifth grade in Northfield and how my first day the kids already had me pegged as a nerd. I remember how they tried to push me into the girls’ bathroom. I remembered even earlier in Grand Rapids having a hard time making friends. I thought of the two best friends I had, Dusty and Andy and one of the few days we were all hanging out together riding our bikes, and they ditched me.

Tears began to run down my face. I sobbed even now as a grown man. “Why,” I ask him, “Why did they do those things to me? What was so wrong about me that they didn’t want to be near me?”

Still he is by my side. I ask him where he was when I felt so hurt. He showed an image of him riding on the pegs extending from the back of my bike as my friends ride off. He is with me. I see him also hanging on to the doorposts of the girls bathroom, his body behind mine as the boys try to push me in. He is with me. I see him at my side, in me, around me, always.

“But why, Jesus, why would they do this to me? Why didn’t they give me a chance? I feel like I didn’t deserve a fair chance, that I was an annoying nerd."

Then I find myself in the dim gym of my elementary school in Grand Rapids. It is my last day, the day of the Christmas party, and I am saying goodbye to my friends. Then a new girl is introduced. It is my last day, it is her first day, and I, in my woundedness, turn to the guys and poke a jab at her. “I am leaving and look what you get in my place.” They laugh at my cruelty, and for a few moments I felt like I was one of them.

“Oh Jesus,” I cry, “They were just hurt and wounded children. They were just children.” I invited them all to that safe place, by the copse of trees, to be with me and Jesus. With them there, as children, Dusty, Andy, the bullies, Adam, Brian, my fifth grade classmates, I tell Jesus what their wounds have meant for me. I tell them that I have been self conscious, I have been afraid of calling anyone, afraid of starting relationships with people afraid of what their first thoughts would be, afraid. “But, Jesus,” I say, “look at them, they are just children. They hurt me from their hurts. Take them in your arms. Love them. I forgive them.”

I walk away, leaving them in his care. He rejoins me so that I don’t have to be alone. He holds me and speaks a word of healing. Ephphatha, be opened. Be free.

Church and business

2010-01-07T23:02:00.001-05:00

Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't by Jim Collins

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

The books, Good to Great, How The Mighty Fall and, Tribes offer the business world surprising and proven insight into how organizations work and succeed. There are a few concepts that have stuck out to me a significant. How can these concepts be applied to the spiritual formation of congregations?

Concepts

Jim Collins, in his book Good to Great offered many insights born of impressive imperial data spanning years and various companies. The results were sometimes surprising but always seemed to boil down to one word: Discipline.

Turning the Flywheel With Discipline

Collins’ research team identified what they called a flywheel. By applying the right small actions over and over again the organization builds momentum until the flywheel gives back the energy it has stored. For a business this means sound management disciplines, for a disciple discipline takes on an added spiritual depth.

In business disciplines center around management principles, like hiring the right people, watching the bottom line and adhering to sound accounting principles are essential to the success of the business. We have seen many high profile failings of businesses that abandon these principles looking for accounting techniques to make their earnings inflated for investors. Certainly the church must be wary of missing these wise business practices and going the way of an Enron or a mortgage company.

Disciplines in that are core to the flywheel of the church and the Christian are much different. They are unique and ancient. They are the classical Spiritual Disciplines. We must be just as disciplined as disciples of Christ as the great companies were to their concepts in Collins’ book.

Collins’ shows that the companies that transitioned from being good to being truly great didn’t do anything flashy to get there, it was organic, it took time and the flywheel needed to be pushed little by little until breakthrough made it spin with little effort. I am a pastor and the son of a pastor. My dad instilled in me the idea that the pastor doesn’t see the breakthrough until about year seven. Hopping from church to church wasn’t the answer. He taught me what it is to stick it out in difficult situations to see the fruit. When I came to pastor Sebewaing Assembly of God I knew it would take time. I had hopes but I didn’t have my every thing invested in hope, but rather in my faith in God and the call. Young families didn’t come, attracted by a young pastor. Projects I started were slow and God’s timing was not as quick as I would have liked. Yet we believed that God would use us to build the Kingdom. Collins calls this relying on faith rather than optimism the “Stockdale Paradox” (Collins, Good to Great 86).

For churches, this kind of discipline means not grasping for the next big thing. This struck me most from Collins’ book How The Mighty Fall. Stage four of decline, where the fall is really evident the company grasps for salvation. I have seen churches do this going from one pastor to another. I have seen pastors do this going from one fad to another. For a long time our church had a new pastor an average of every six months. A major reason I knew it would take time to do anything new in the church coming in is that they have had a string of pastors for decades come and try to do something new and fail and move on. They have tried it all. I need to be different.

Connecting Tribe Members

While Seth Godin doesn’t have the backing of the extensive research behind Jim Collins’ works, his insight into the impact of new media is helpful. There is one concept central to Tribes that captures me. Aside from the motivational stuff about being a heretic and leading audaciously, he talks about connecting tribe members to one another (25).
How do I get the people in my church talking to one another? This book is a great encouragement to cutting edge churches to make good use of social media. My challenge is different. I have only two church people with email and facebook. I serve an older, rural congregation. How do I get them talking?

Shared experiences offer a beginning place. We start small (Collins would be proud,) with disciplined time together Sunday mornings and at breakfast on Wednesdays. Some people have begun coming to Bible study and have been talking about needing more potlucks. These are all ways to build community. This discipline also needs to expand to shared service and missions endeavors.

Real fellowship requires something more than just a community. A Methodist pastor, Robert Rains discovered this in the 1950’s. There was great power in true fellowship (prompting him to write a book he called New Life In The Church), but what he discovered is that true fellowship was the union between community and engagement in theological reality. It is as the mystic disciplines intersect with disciplined community that something super-organic happens. We come to life.

Hedgehog Concept

Collins says that for a business to succeed it has to do one thing well, it just has to find out what that thing is. This thing is the intersection of passion, potential for greatness and the organization’s economic engine (Collins, Good to Great 96). This means a dogged commitment to the organization’s core values. For the church this means two things. First the church must be the church. The church needs to remember that it has something unique in the world. It can and must be the best in the world at providing access to the Triune God and God’s household. Secondly The church’s core values must come from her understanding of the nature of God. I was always confused by the course in college called “pastoral theology.” It was all the practices of being a pastor, but we didn’t discuss the theology. I have found it powerful to have at our core the contemplation of God when asking what we should do. Just as Collins said that great companies make consistent decisions in line with their “hedgehog concept”, so the church will well know what to do when gazing at the heart of God. Justice, mission, evangelism, community and ministry will flow from such a church.

Difficulties

I really find less exciting to read principles of management and leadership from corporate America than to read about how to enjoy mystical union with God. I find this ironic since finding ways to lead people into the mystical depths is where I sense my great need. I have mentioned the concepts I have found useful, now lets turn to some difficulties in applying corporate thought to the spiritual.

The church as a business

But the church is not a business. Looking to corporate America for solutions to becoming a great church runs the risk of neglecting our own hedgehog concepts; something Collins says can be done only at great peril (Collins, How The Mighty Fall 30). If we go after what is flashy, professional, and quality to draw people and define the church, we run the risk of forgetting how fulfilling connection with God in the Spirit truly is. So often we try to recreate things of the world in our churches, from clubs to the fun and games in youth group, and forget that we have something special to offer.

A second difficulty I have with Collins’ work is the idea of being best in the world as a marker of greatness and success. I can see, as I have mentioned that the church as a whole needs to be best in the world at connecting people spiritually to the Triune God and each other, but doesn’t saying my local church organization can be the best in the world seem awfully competitive. Competition is certainly the stuff of the free market, but don’t we all ready have too much consumerism in church? I should think that greatness in a church would be radically different, engaging cooperatively in the ministry of the wider body of Christ.

Who then what

The church doesn’t have the luxury to pick and choose who will come. We can recruit disciplined people for leadership positions but unlike a company we cannot pass over or fire immature church people. The lesson has to be modified to put our primary focus on developing people rather than running successful programs. Ephesians four gives us the model for this. The leaders are meant to equip the saints to do the work of the Kingdom.

A way in which many churches are following the world of corporate marketeering in selecting who can come is by setting a target audience. The church I grew up in embarked on a major transformation process recently. They redefined their target audience as the hip 20-30 year olds but in the process alienated my grandparents, who no longer attend, and my parents, who are restricted from ministry because of their age. If we truly value the body of Christ how can we make such distinctions by generation? The church is unique, not many corporations can serve people birth to the grave. We cannot abandon this core value to more effective marketing.

Economic Engine

I sense an incongruity of having economics a key part of church life. The world is already suspicious about the church wanting my money. We don’t exist for the money, despite what the skeptics say, still money allows us to do amazing things, when used properly. It allows us to engage in justice, missions, evangelism, and ministry to the community of faith. So cash flow is important as fuel for our core values. Defining our economic engine clearly can be a hedge against going after money and buildings.

The only formula I found useful was: cash flow to outreach/nominal attendee. This way our measure of success is tied both to how much we are giving but also how many people are moving from nominal attendees to fully engaged disciples. Collins would have us examine our actions, successes and failures in light of our hedgehog concept, including our economic engine to see how we fair.

Conclusion

The principles laid out by Collins and Godin are useful to the church, but the church must never loose sight of its core values. Collins is right in asserting discipline to a hedgehog concept, and for the church such discipline will mean modification of some of the other principles of corporate America. We, however, have a great guide who has promised to lead us into all truth.

Works Cited
Tribes: We Need You to Lead Us
How The Mighty Fall: And Why Some Companies Never Give In
Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap... and Others Don't

View all my reviews >>

Pulp reality

2010-01-07T19:22:00.000-05:00

I pull into the gun club's snow covered parking lot, way in the back under a lone street lamp, a car is parked. The snow falls gently as I approach the car, she rolls down the window. Handing a brown envelop through the car window to a woman who has never met me and I have never met, seems an awfully clandestine way to deliver Ella's girl scout cookie money.

Doing Justice

2009-12-18T11:16:00.001-05:00

Philosophy

Justice is the imperative of all Christians being formed into the image of Christ. It is at the very heart of God, one of the attributes that describes the entirety of God’s being - for God is just in love, just in transcendence, just in omnipotence, just in wrath, just in God’s relational nature. Micah reminds wayward Israel that she has been told what God desires; it is not extravagant sacrifice, holocaust or oblation (Micah 6:6,7). Instead, says the prophet,

He has told you, O mortal, what is good;
and what does the Lord require of you
but to do justice, and to love kindness,
and to walk humbly with your God?
(Micah 6:8 NRSV)

Do Justice

In an interview with the Canadian program The Hour, Tony Campolo states that on judgment day the question isn’t going to be about theological belief. “It’s not going to be ‘virgin birth - strongly agree, agree, disagree...’”(Campolo, The Hour). He says Jesus offers only one view of judgment day, and his question will be: how did you treat the poor (Matthew 25:31-46)?

In this familiar passage, the Son of Man, the King of a new glorious kingdom, will separate the “sheep” from the “goats” based on what they did to the poor, the hungry, the naked, the imprisoned, and the homeless. He claims with authority that he was that overlooked and ignored person, what they did or failed to do for the least, the did or failed to do for him, the King of Glory.

Jesus, in this passage, tells us the continuing meaning of the incarnation. He is not off in the cosmos somewhere away from us, he is found in the “least of these.” We serve Jesus in the weak, the poor, the oppressed and disadvantaged. If we wish to grow in Christ-likeness we must be where Christ is to be found. This calls for a significant re-ordering of society around the weakest. Justice means not only individual acts of charity, but also a complete changing of the way we do society. Serving this King of Glory means serving through the upside down values of this new Kingdom. Just as the Son of Man ascends to his throne, we are called to establish his reign in our lives and sphere of influence, the world.

Stephen is a great example of the early church living out these words. Luke tells us that the early church held their possessions in common and “there was not a needy person among them” (Acts 4:34a NRSV). Inequity soon arose. The widows who were Greek Jews were being overlooked. The disciples picked seven people filled with the Holy Spirit and wisdom to bring justice to their food distribution system. One of those people was Stephen. Along with the seven the twelve laid their hands on Stephen and commissioned him, demonstrating the importance of this work. It has long struck me as significant that it was important these servants be filled with the Spirit. Soon the Spirit is working wonders through Stephen. I wonder if those wonders, like those of Jesus, were directed to the poor, the sick and oppressed. Soon arguments arose and Stephen stood in the prophetic tradition speaking truth to the power of the Sanhedrin. In him we have an example of how to do justice and the reliance on the power of Spirit it takes to accomplish the work.

Love Kindness

Justice is primarily relational. Justice is the right and just exercising of power (Haugen 51). This describes a relationship between a person with power and one without. Addressing in justice means entering into relationship. We enter into relationship with people of powerlessness (Jacobsen 63) as well as people of power (39). The call here is that those relationships be marked with kindness, tenderness and mercy.

Not only should there be kindness and tenderness in our relationships, we should love to be kind and merciful, it is to be a delight. This is the fruit of transformation. The kingdom come to our lives changes what is not possible on our own. The act of loving our enemies and the unlovable is unnatural. We need supernatural power to be the body of Christ. When the church acts as the body, she can change the world through personal relationship.

Another way relationships engage justice is through the Christian’s call to radical subordination. We belong to each other and are called to submit to one another. Yoder calls us to take this command and find in it a nonviolent resistance to unjust use of power (Hobby and Patton 9.1).

When Paul sent the runaway slave Onesimus back to Philemon, he made a plea based on relationship. Onesimus had become a dear son to Paul (Philemon 10). Out of love for him, Paul pleaded with Philemon to show mercy and kindness as is due a brother. Paul also appealed to his relationship to Philemon to convince him to do what was right. Even in his relationship to Philemon, he refused coercion trusting that Philemon would be kind spontaneously (14). We don’t get to know Philemon’s response to the apostle, but one can sense the delight Paul has in loving both Philemon and Onesimus as brothers in Christ.

Walk Humbly

The 14th century classic The Cloud of Unknowing describes the place where the kind of transformation takes place that enables us to do justice and love kindness. For the anonymous mystic that place is between the cloud of unknowing that hides God in God’s naked nature and the cloud of forgetting under which we hide all that we know, all that would distract. “Then let your loving desire, gracious and devout, step bravely and joyfully beyond it and reach out to pierce the darkness above. Yes, beat upon that thick cloud of unknowing with the dart of your loving desire and do not cease come what may” (Johnston 55).

The process the mystic describes is commonly called centering prayer. The position between the cloud of forgetting and the cloud of unknowing is a place of humility. We must release all the notions we have of God, and any notion of comprehending him. This is the via negativa, the apophatic way to God. Relinquishing words and ideas leaves us alone with our naked intent before a naked God. A true experience with ourselves as we are, and God as God is, leads to perfect humility.

Before such goodness and love nature trembles, sages stammer like fools, and the saints and angels are blinded with glory. So overwhelming is this revelation of God’s nature that if his power did not sustain them, I dare not think what might happen (Johnston 65).

Walking humbly with God means entering this place of discipline and allowing God to transform our character. We cannot, of our own power, change ourselves, let alone change the injustice of the world. We need the humility to realize that we need God and God’s transforming work. While we can’t learn to love the unlovable and the enemy, we can exercise our love, hurling it at the darkness that conceals the awful abyss of God’s being. Centering prayer requires that we focus our love on God humbly without expectation. With such action grace enlarges the capacity of our hearts to love.

In Acts when Peter and John returned to the fledgling church after being released from Sanhedrin imprisonment, the believers prayed a prayer that focused first of all on the awesome power of God. "Sovereign Lord," they said, "you made the heaven and the earth and the sea, and everything in them” (Acts 4:24b NIV). From that center they continued to ask God to give them strength to continue to expand the Kingdom. In the same way our spiritual transformation is the center from which we engage the world.

A Model

From that center I can change the world. There is a model to be developed that creates a cycle by which personal transformation turns upside down the world’s injustices and the injustices we face fuel our transformation into the image of Christ. For such a dynamo to spin, both action and intimacy must be attended to.

Tony Campolo calls us to praxis. “It means that what we think and what we do should not be separated. We learn best when we rethink our beliefs and convictions at the same time we are living them out” (Campolo and Darling 188). It is this rethinking and reevaluating that challenges us and forces us into some of the paradoxes of Christian Mysticism we might otherwise not encounter.
With praxis at work I will become alert and aware of the injustice around me – my personal transformation and exposure to injustice will see to that. I develop what Vander Meulen cites as Epiphany Eyes, which see through to the underlying reality (Vander Meulen 62). Spiritual transformation is all about seeing reality, weather the reality of the world as it is, or the reality of the sovereignty of God that will make the Kingdom come. As I look to develop a model for seeking justice through my own life and ministry there are a few principles I find helpful.

Relational

I feel that it is not enough to sit back and send emails to my legislators, though I find that easy to do. What is rising up within me cries for relationship. I would much rather sit down over a cup of coffee with my elected officials, my congregation and most of all the victims of injustice. I want to learn from them, I want to share God’s passion with them. I am convinced for a change to take place, our best hope is in the personal transformation of people, and that occurs relationally. Lord, let the fire spread into a movement.

Communal

I have friends who as a married couple went to Atlanta for a Mission Year. They lived in intentional community, and were tasked to build relationships in their neighborhood. Now they have moved back to Michigan and are doing the same thing in Saginaw. They aren’t appointed, professional ministers; they are simply living out their transformation. My wife and I have wanted to live in intentional community for some time, even sharing our home for a few months last year. As I approach justice community building will be a centerpiece, in the context of the congregation, village and our home. Lord, build through and around us a transformational community, willing to engage the world.

Glocal

Finally as I approach justice I will embrace glocalism. I will think globally and act locally. I will keep my eyes peeled by grace, on the world around me and around the globe to spot injustice, and then find ways, creative grace filled ways to engage the issues locally. This will mean agitating my community as well as celebrating the dignity of God’s creation.

Father, take these meager thoughts and through praxis hone me. May we change the world together! Amen.

Works Cited

Campolo, Tony, interview by George Stroumboulopoulos. The Hour CBC. 2007 March.
Campolo, Tony, and Mary Albert Darling. The God of Intimacy and Action. San Fransisco, CA: Jossey-Bass, 2007.
Haugen, Gary A. Good News About Injustice. 10th Aniversary edition. Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsiy Press, USA, 2009.
Hobby, Nathan, and James Patton. “The Politics of Jesus, Simplified: a simplified summary of John H. Yoder's classic book.” Savage Parade. 2005 January. http://web.archive.org/web/20080308233554/http://www.geocities.com/savageparade/poj.htm.
Jacobsen, Dennis A. Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing. Minneapolis, MN: Augsburg Fortress, 2001.
Johnston, William, ed. The Cloud of Unknowing and Book of Privy Counseling. New York: Doubleday, 1973.
Vander Meulen, Peter. “Do Justice - Keep it Simple.” Christian Reflections (The Center for Christian Ethics at Baylor University) Global Wealth (2007): 60-64.

Coffee Justice

2009-12-14T10:56:00.010-05:00

Where do I begin?

2009-11-25T14:21:00.001-05:00

Campolo and Bono do a great job expressing eloquently the social imperative the follower of Christ faces. They resonate with me, much like the emotional growl of a great jazz singer or the funky bass of a hardcore band, they pound my chest with vibration. After listening to a message by Campolo in the car on our way to Pizza Hut, I told my wife "I am converted all over again."

What to do then? I cheer on Bono, calling on America to increase aid to poor countries by just %1 of the federal budget. I want to dive into the One campaign and see this through. But what authority have I? How have I sacrificed (Campolo, Power and Authority)?

One place I can begin to implement justice ideas is in crafting the DNA of the coffeehouse that we are starting. We have written into our mission statement that "Live Wired Coffeehouse is committed to engaging in the local economy, doing business with organizations that show care and concern for people and the environment at all levels of production. We are committed to using best practices in business to value people and protect the environment." I warned the students on the board of the coffeehouse that this commitment will have far reaching implications in the way we do business. This will mean searching out the companies and suppliers to do business with who have strong ethical and compassionate practices. This will mean paying our workers what they are worth, and paying more for coffee that is harvested in sustainable ways and where the harvesters are being paid a living wage. I am happy about starting with these values, and look forward to educating our employees and patrons as to their importance.

Inner healing as tough work Part 2.

2009-11-23T14:37:00.000-05:00

The work of inner healing sneaked up on me. Unlike last time when I had made a conscious effort to work things through, today I was caught off guard. It began last night as memories of the pain I felt in my ministry in Faribault came flooding back, mercilessly. Today, also out of the blue, God helped me understand why I was hurt.

I so desired their approval, that I went to great lengths, but their respect was not something I was going to receive. God was gracious and was nearer to me then in more tangibility than ever.