How can I know the God who provides if I can provide everything I need myself?

In short, my health insurance scared me because I didn’t need God to heal me – a $15 copay and $40 in prescriptions would do just fine. Our savings (as small as it was) was the quintessential excess – beyond what we needed day-to-day, but there just in case. My TV, laptop, vacation time and movie tickets gave me all I needed to relax.

I could go on, but you get it. I had earned, bought or created everything I needed to live a healthy, secure, fun and enjoyable life. But all that meant in the end was I didn’t need God – other than to “help me” continue to be able to live like this.

So when I read the Scriptures and was introduced to the God who provides I didn’t know what to do with him. Because I didn’t really need anything.

Of course, this is why the American church has to work so hard to market God. We live in a society that is designed for people to succeed and provide for themselves. God is a useless commodity – so the church has to create fancy graphics, take out billboards and come up with creative t-shirts that spin God and his powers in ways people haven’t heard.

Don’t get me wrong, our message is clear: maybe, if after all that you have acquired you still fill empty, all you need to do is acquire God. (Join us for a creative four week series – insert logo copied from some aspect of materialistic living – that will tell you how!)

Maybe the biggest barrier to seeing God move in our lives is our constant desire to be able to provide everything we need.

Jesus’ message to his followers was that if God could feed the birds and care for all the vegetation on the planet, could he not care for us? We don’t need to worry about our stuff. We are free to live generously, to have less than we think we need and to experience a life held in the hands of the God who provides.

Yesterday we were at Temple Shalom in Dallas, which was an incredible experience. Temple Shalom’s prayer chapel (pictured below) is pretty well known in architectural circles – the beams that hold up the ceiling all tie in to a circular beam that lacks front support. It’s pretty amazing to sit in the room.

In Judaism, we use the language “partnering with God.” We use the (Hebrew) term tikkun olam – meaning, to repair the world. It is finishing the work that God started in creation. God has chosen to leave certain things undone and we have the free will to do these things.

Our deeds take precedence over our creeds. All that the Lord has spoken, we will do. We do Jewish, we don’t necessarily believe Jewish. If we do believe Jewish, there are a lot of different beliefs.

It was powerful to hear his views – sometimes I think groups in my circle of faith get too caught up in making sure people “believe the right thing” (read: exactly what I believe) versus helping people engage in the movement of the Kingdom here on earth.

It’s a new way of thinking. It’s living Jesus-ly. It’s transferring participation in the Kingdom from a primarily spectator/cerebral event to a primarily participant/incarnational lifestyle.

But what do you think? Do you see this? How does it challenge you?

And that’s exciting.

God has been shaking a lot up in my views of him and what living as a follower of the Messiah looks like. And that takes time to marinate. To think through. It’s more than just talking points – and I can’t wait to share it over the next few months.

Here’s a glimpse:

For most of my life I’ve been around people who would say that Christians are blessed by God when they are rich. That when God’s hand is on you, you are always full. That good Christians can laugh through anything. That we should work to gain the respect of everyone.

But here’s what Jesus says in Luke 6:

Woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.

Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.

Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.

Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.

It’s not counsel to avoid money, satisfaction, joy and reputation – it’s pity for those who pursue present riches over identification with the Son of Man.

Which means quite a bit of my thinking is backwards. And maybe the things I’m doing are more of the empire than the Kingdom. And maybe I need to fall deeper into God’s grace – re-imagining everything.

Let the journey begin…

Jesus’ ministry was just beginning, his first followers gathering. First messages being taught. Then a leper approached him. “If you will, you can make me clean.” No one could do this. It was insurmountable.

But Jesus healed him.

If ever there was an opportunity to become famous – this was it. Word would spread, people would come in droves and Jesus could explode onto the scene.

Jesus sent the man to the priest (this was required by Hebrew Law so the man could be accepted back into society), but charged him to tell no one of what he had experienced.

Go and tell no one.

It’s a terrible marketing plan. A horrible way to spread the word. An impossible plan for growth. It’s like Jesus wasn’t interested in being marketed.

If he were on the earth today you probably wouldn’t see any billboards advertising him. No book signings. No t-shirts. Or lights. Or cameras. Or PR teams.

He ministered to people through his presence with them.

Occasionally that involved large crowds, but most of the time it was small groups. Individual relationships. And when the attention turned up, Jesus generally withdrew.

So if Jesus wasn’t interested in being a rock star, maybe our desire to make him famous is rooted more in our own attention-lust than it is in the ethos of the Messiah.

A few months ago I was standing in a friend’s kitchen in Orlando and over the course of a 4 hour conversation met two amazing men – men whom God was leading down a very similar journey to our own. It wasn’t until the end of the conversation that I found out they were a network that starts churches.

Over the course of the next few months we grew our relationship with Sent Network and finalized a partnership for the next season of our ministry.

You could call it a (huge) step between where we are and where we feel like God is leading us.

So, this winter we will be moving to Annapolis, MD to begin a residency designed for people starting churches.

The residency focuses on three key areas: head, heart and hands. The head part will involve a little more seminary training, reading of some key texts and the formation of some of our philosophy of ministry. Over the past few months we have undergone a lot of assessment, and we will be formulating a plan for the heart section of the training from those interviews. And the hands section will give us the opportunity to help start a community in Annapolis, as well as refine our ministry skills.

But more than all that, we’re looking forward to joining the community at the church we will be serving at, Downtown Hope. I could tell you it’s because we are looking forward to learning from them – because they are very progressive. Or because there pastor is someone I look up to and have a lot to learn from. (And all that would be true.) But the main reason we’re excited about it is that we believe community is the context of faith.

So the entire idea of having the next 15 months to prepare our lives, rhythms and plans for New York – in the context of a rich community that’s focused on developing believers – is unbelievably exciting.

We know God is going to do a ton over this next season and we definitely need your prayers and support. If some of this resinates with you, check out our support page and find out more about how you can get involved.

Because together we become more than we ever imagined and unlock all God designed for our lives.

Not sure I can put it into words… the quote – speaks to me about painting a picture that captures the imagination. the pic – picture of what was once imagined being realized and it being even better than once thought.

I wake up in the middle of the night dreaming of what God is doing. I want others to do the same. We are not there yet.

Everyone views that image differently, but here’s the ethos behind the picture to me (and my reply to my friend):

“Missions is less about the transportation of God from one place to another and more about the identification of a God who is already there. You see God where others don’t And then you point him out.” – Rob Bell.

So, yes, we’re painting a picture – and it’s a picture of what we see God already doing. Jonathan Edwards believed that no man can, of himself, come to God. That by the time a man makes a decision for God, the Holy Spirit is deeply at work in his life (for what sinful man would willfully choose God?). The choice itself is an act of grace.

There are so many implications to this belief – chief of which, is that God is working in the “non-believer’s” life as much as he is in the “believer’s” life. And that maybe those terms are entirely too small to encapsulate all God is doing.

And maybe the Spirit is at work all around us and maybe our job as pastors is to be tour-guides for our cities to see and experience this God that is larger than any of us could ever imagine.

God always hears the cry of the oppressed. And we see lack of access to clean water as fundamentally oppressive.

So when water bursts forth, redemption comes with every drop. And God is at work.

It wasn’t over their lack of knowledge with Scripture, their commitment to him or their ability to follow God’s commands though.

Jesus got frustrated with the disciples over their lack of understanding of how his presence in their lives changed everything.

Which makes me realize that he is probably pretty frustrated with me from time to time as well.

Because I just don’t get it.

I read that if my faith is as big as a mustard seed that I could throw a mountain into the ocean – yet I lack faith when I ask for God to provide for my family’s needs (something God has already promised anyway).

Maybe I need to re-imagine what my life looks like with the Messiah’s presence in it.

How do I walk? How do I talk? What do I find joy in? What do I get furiously angry at? What motivates me? Discourages me?

Because there is power in presence. And if I can understand and respond to that, the whole world could change.